GIFT   OF 


BENJAMIN    GILL 


SERMONS  AND  ADDRESSES 
BENJAMIN  GILL 


c^JL^u 


PREFATORY  NOTE 


T  the  regular  meeting  of  the  General  Faculty 
September  12,  1912,  "it  was  voted,"  in  the 
words  of  the  minutes  of  that  meeting,  "on  mo- 
tion by  Dr.  E.  W.  Runkle,  that  a  committee 
of  five  be  appointed  to  arrange  for  the 
issuing  of  a  memorial  volume  commemorative  of  the 
long,  faithful,  and  devoted  service  of  Dr.  Benjamin 
Gill,  late  Chaplain  of  the  College  and  Professor  of  Latin 
and  Greek.  The  President  appointed  as  such  committee : 
Professor  Pattee,  for  the  Faculty ;  the  Reverend  J.  McK. 
Reiley,  Dr.  Gill's  pastor;  Mrs.  Runkle,  representing  the 
Woman's  Club;  Mr.  D.  F.  Kapp,  representing  the  vil- 
lage ;  Mr.  S.  K.  Hostetter,  representing  the  business  con- 
nections." 

At  the  first  meeting  of  the  committee  Mr.  S.  K. 
Hostetter  was  elected  Secretary  and  Business  Manager. 
Since  it  had  no  funds  at  its  disposal,  the  committee  de- 
cided upon  a  subscription  volume  to  be  sold  at  the  bare 
cost  of  manufacture  and  advertising.  It  was  decided 
that  it  would  prove  more  acceptable  to  the  friends  of  Dr. 
Gill  who  would  purchase  the  volume  if  it  were  made 
a  collection  of  some  of  his  best  writings,  rather  than  a 
memorial  work  with  tribute  and  resolutions.  Professor 
Pattee  was  accordingly  elected  as  editor. 

The  papers  of  Dr.  Gill  given  over  to  the  committee 
consist  of  the  148  sermons  preached  before  the  students 


270235 


of  the  college  between  the  years  1899  and  1911,  a  num- 
ber of  sermons  preached  elsewhere  during  the  period, 
and  various  papers  and  addresses  given  before  literary 
societies,  at  school  commencements,  and  on  other  occa- 
sions. 

The  sermons  are  in  many  ways  remarkable.  They 
were  all  of  them  written  out  in  full  with  extreme  care  and 
dated  and  numbered.  They  were  written  always  with  a 
view  to  the  needs  and  the  attainments  of  the  students  for 
whom  they  were  intended.  How  broad  an  area  of  subjects 
they  covered  one  can  see  by  consulting  the  appendix  at  the 
end  of  this  book.  They  reflect  in  a  remarkable  way  the 
spirit  of  the  college  life  during  the  era  they  cover.  They 
are  colored  often  by  some  specific  event  in  the  college 
week  which  had  just  passed  or  by  the  season  of  the  year 
or  by  some  happening  in  the  state  or  national  life.  Just 
before  the  great  football  game  he  preaches  on  "The  Ath- 
letic Spirit";  at  the  time  of  the  deplorable  college  strike 
he  speaks  on  "Come,  Let  us  Reason  Together";  at  the 
beginning  of  each  year  he  gives  always  sound  advice  and 
holds  up  the  highest  standard,  striking  always  what  he 
hopes  to  be  the  key-note  of  the  year.  His  illustrations, 
many  of  them,  are  taken  from  the  life  and  the  environ- 
ment of  the  college.  It  is  a  series  of  sermons  that  is  a 
part  of  the  splendid  history  of  the  college  and  as  such 
should  be  jealously  guarded  in  its  most  sacred  archives. 

In  seeking  a  few  specimens  of  Dr.  Gill's  work  for 
reproduction  in  this  volume,  the  editor  has  held  before 
himself  three  requirements.  First,  he  has  sought  those 
selections  that  are  most  finished  and  most  literary; 
second,  he  has  sought  those  parts  of  his  work  which  would 
be  most  redolent  of  the  author's  genial  personality;  and 


third,  he  has  tried  as  far  as  possible  to  preserve  addresses 
that  are  a  part  of  the  history  of  the  college,  such  as,  for 
instance,  the  Prayers,  the  memorial  address  for  President 
Atherton,  and  the  last  sermon  delivered  in  the  old  chapel 
before  the  whole  student  body. 

To  all  who  have  helped  in  any  way  to  make  the 
volume  possible,  to  the  Alumni  of  the  Pennsylvania  State 
College  and  others  who  have  helped  with  their  subscrip- 
tions, and  to  the  friends  who  have  in  one  way  or  another 
made  the  work  possible  the  committee  wishes  to  express 
its  heartfelt  thanks.  That  the  book  may  be  thought 
worthy  of  the  memory  of  the  man  whom  it  tries  to  honor 
is  the  sincere  wish  of 

THE  COMMITTEE. 
State  College,  Pa.,  March  i,  1913. 


CONTENTS 

Part  I.     In  Memoriam 

I.  Benjamin  Gill,  A.M.,  D.D.,  by  Erwin  W.  Run- 

kle. 

II.  Benjamin  Gill :  An  Appreciation,  by  Fred  Lewis 

Pattee. 

III.  A  Tribute  to  Benjamin  Gill,  by  C.  T.  Winchester. 

Part  II.     Sermons  and  Addresses 

I.  Glimpses  of  Travel. 

II.  Fanny  Burney  and  Her  Times. 

III.  A  Brotherhood  of  Culture. 

IV.  Values  Inherent  to  Friendship. 

V.  The  Preciousness  of  the  Bible. 

VI.  How  to  Spend  My  Sundays. 

VII.  Old  Home  Week. 

VIII.  The  Problems  of  Life  Solved  by  Worship. 

IX.  Prayers. 

X.  Of  What  Use  is  an  Old  Man  Anyhow  ? 
XL  Academic  Foundations. 

XII.  A  Man  is  Worth  What  He  Can  Think. 

XIII  Success  Through  Monotony. 

XIV.  Moulded  by  an  Idea. 

XV.  Honoring  One's  Name. 

XVI.  Consulting  Our  Fears. 

XVII     Some  Practical  Bearings  of  a  Belief  in  the  Future 

Life. 
Appendix. 


PART  I. 
IN  MEMORIAM 


IN  MEMORIAM 
I.     BENJAMIN  GILL,  A.M.,  D.D. 

ERWIN   W.    RUNKLE 

Institutions  like  our  own  have  two  histories,  one 
written  in  buildings,  the  other  in  men.  The  one  is  ex- 
pressed in  external  changes,  the  other  in  scholarly  lives. 
In  our  estimates,  the  former,  openly  avowed  or  tactly  im- 
plied, frequently  overshadows  the  latter,  but  sober  reflec- 
tion brings  us  back  to  the  moral  worth  of  personalities. 
Adapting  a  sentiment  of  Emerson's,  we  then  affirm  that 
"institutions  are  but  the  lengthening  shadows  of  men." 
In  the  same  sense  that  Rugby  was  Arnold,  are  our  Amer- 
can  Colleges  the  sum  of  character  forces,  the  personel 
of  administrator  and  scholar. 

No  one  doubts  that  the  common  suffrages  of  our 
College  Community  assign  to  Dr.  Benjamin  Gill  a  con- 
spicuous place  among  these  permanent  character  forces. 
This  admission  quickens  our  interest  in  a  sketch  of  his 
life,  and  inspires  a  common  tribute  of  affection  and 
esteem. 

Benjamin  Gill  was  born  July  n,  1843,  in  the  woolen 
manufacturing  district  of  Yorkshire,  in  Northern  Eng- 
land. He  was  placed  in  a  factory  at  the  early  age  of 
eight  years,  where  he  worked  half  time,  going  to  school 
the  other  half.  In  these  schools,  the  one  no  less  than 
the  other,  he  learned  the  lessons  of  "industry  and  faith- 
fulness," the  terms  with  which  he  loved  best  to  charac- 
terize his  own  life. 


When  he  was  eleven  years  old,  the  family  emigrated 
to  America,  locating  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  where 
Dr.  Gill  grew  to  young  manhood.  Bearing  his  share  in 
the  burden  of  establishing  the  family  in  the  new  world, 
our  subject  was  immediately  placed  in  a  cotton  factory, 
and  later  apprenticed  to  a  boot-maker  near  Worcester. 
Factory  conditions  were  severe  in  those  days,  the  click 
of  the  machinery  beginning  at  a  quarter  of  five,  and  con- 
tinuing, (with  only  forty-five  minutes  for  dinner),  until 
seven-thirty.  Studying  as  opportunity  offered  at  night 
or  in  the  shop,  attending  lyceum  lectures  in  Worcester, 
and  reading  books  from  its  Public  Library,  he  came  to 
have  an  unalterable  ambition  for  higher  education.  Giv- 
ing over  his  apprenticeship,  he  returned  to  Worcester, 
but  being  a  minor,  was  obliged  to  aid  the  family  fortunes 
by  working  in  a  machine  shop.  The  war,  too,  broke  out, 
and  this  shop  with  many  others  was  transformed  into  a 
manufactory  of  gun  fittings  under  contracts  from  the 
Springfield  Arsenal.  Thus  the  sterner  duties  of  war  de- 
layed but  did  not  destroy  his  love  of  books  and  learning. 

When  twenty-one  years  of  age,  Dr.  Gill  had  a  capi- 
tal of  but  thirty  dollars,  earned  by  working  overtime ;  his 
real  fortune  lay  in  a  fixed  determination  to  secure  a  good 
education.  In  March,  1864,  he  entered  the  academy  at 
Wilbraham,  Massachusetts,  and  two  years  later,  Wes- 
leyan  University,  graduating  with  the  class  of  1870. 
Those  six  years  were  years  of  struggle  and  sacrifice 
which  try  men's  souls.  He  supported  himself  by  toiling 
in  the  machine  shop  during  the  summer,  by  teaching 
school,  and  finally  by  preaching,  in  addition  to  his  regu- 
lar college  work.  However,  friends  came  to  his  aid,  else 
the  strain  would  have  been  too  great  for  even  his  indom- 
itable zeal. 

10 


Dr.  Gill  chose  the  ministry  as  his  profession,  and 
upon  the  completion  of  his  college  course,  he  joined  the 
New  England  Conference  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  and  "was  settled"  at  Westboro,  about  thirty 
miles  from  Boston.  He  was  married  in  1870  to  Lucy 
Eleanor  Whitman,  whom  he  first  met  at  the  academy. 
A  happy,  Christian  home  was  established  in  which  she 
shared  the  burdens  until  her  death  in  1897. 

To  all  outward  appearances,  Dr.  Gill  was  to  follow 
the  life  of  a  New  England  parson,  bringing  lessons  of  the 
joy  of  sacrifice,  the  struggle  of  victory,  to  the  people 
among  whom  his  life  was  to  be  cast.  But  fate  had  mark- 
ed a  path  of  yet  greater  usefulness.  He  was  to  instruct 
youth,  to  teach  teachers,  to  inspire  those  who  would  later 
carry  the  message  of  manly  work  in  the  world  into  all 
avenues  of  life.  The  opportunity  came  in  the  form  of  an 
invitation  in  1872  to  teach  at  his  old  academy  at  Wilbra- 
ham,  He  began  by  teaching,  to  quote  his  own  words,  "a 
little  Latin,  some  very  elementary  algebra,  and  arithme- 
tic." In  1875,  he  was  placed  in  charge  of  Greek  and 
History  in  the  Academy,  and  during  the  seventeen  years 
of  his  connection,  shared  with  the  Principal  of  the  School 
the  labors  of  administration  at  home  and  abroad. 

It  would  be  no  fling  of  an  arrow  at  a  venture  to 
affirm  he  taught  his  pupils  many  things  not  in  text-books 
or  curriculum;  and  the  spontaneous  tributes  of  these 
students  of  his,  many  of  whom  occupy  commanding  posi- 
tions in  business  and  professional  life,  bear  noble  wit- 
ness. Moreover,  Dr.  Gill  was  a  public-spirited  citizen, 
taking  an  active  part  in  town  meetings,  serving  on  school 
committees,  and  ministering  to  the  community  liberally. 


11 


In  1892  he  accepted  the  Professorship  of  Latin  at 
The  Pennsylvania  State  College,  and  as  opportunity  and 
duty  called,  he  later  became  Professor  of  Greek  and 
Latin,  Dean  of  the  School  of  Language  and  Literature, 
and  College  Chaplain. 

Since  1899  Dr.  Gill  has  been  in  charge  of  the  Chapel 
Services,  himself  speaking  on  alternate  Sundays.  A 
change  in  conducting  the  morning  chapel  exercises  was 
made  in  1905,  since  which  time,  he  has  led  the  service. 
Let  who  may,  think  these  light  tasks  and  duties.  The 
most  inspiring,  the  most  critical,  the  most  strength-con- 
suming audience  is  a  college  audience.  Would  that  some 
pen  might  marshall  the  fruits  of  these  labors  in  the  lives 
of  Penn  State  men. 

In  1909  Dr.  Gill  resigned  the  Deanship  of  the  School 
of  Languages  and  Literature  (which  later  was  merged  in 
the  School  of  Liberal  Arts),  and  gave  all  his  energy  to 
the  work  of  teacher  and  College  Chaplain.  He  lectured 
many  times  before  Schools  and  Colleges,  wrote  for  pub- 
lications, besides  ministering  in  countless  ways  and  on 
countless  occasions  to  the  varying  needs  and  changes  of 
a  college  community.  In  the  stress  of  affliction,  in  over- 
whelming sadness,  in  bounty  of  joy,  (and  our  college 
community  has  had  its  due  of  such),  both  student  and 
co-worker  have  turned  naturally  to  Dr.  Gill  for  the  ap- 
propriate word,  for  healing  consolation,  for  the  common 
touch  of  human  brotherhood.  The  friend  of  all,  he  has 
always  given  his  best  to  his  friends. 

Academic  honors  and  responsibilities  were  his 
throughout  his  work.  He  represented  the  College  at 
various  academic  celebrations  and  educational  meetings. 
He  was  a  member  of  Psi  Upsilon  Fraternity,  of  Phi 

12 


Beta  Kappa,  and  of  Phi  Kappa  Phi.  He  was  the  Treas- 
urer General,  and  one  of  the  Regents  of  the  last  named 
organization  since  its  beginning,  closely  identified  with 
its  policies  and  active  in  its  growth.  He  is  the  father  of 
the  Literary  Club,  an  organization  of  the  Faculty  of  The 
Pennsylvania  State  College,  which  since  1895  has  had  a 
vigorous  life.  In  1902  Wesleyan  University  conferred 
upon  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity.  He  repeat- 
edly sat  at  the  "head  of  the  board"  at  Wesleyan  banquets, 
and  upon  Commencement  occasions  had  the  honor  of  dis- 
tributing the  prizes  of  his  Alma  Mater. 

For  thirty-nine  years  Dr.  Gill's  work  as  a  teacher  has 
been  almost  continuous.  He  travelled  in  Europe  during 
the  summer  of  1882;  and  in  1905  spent  the  vacation  in 
California  and  the  Northwest.  In  1907  he  was  urged  to 
accept  a  brief  vacation,  and  he  again  travelled  on  the 
Pacific  Coast.  In  the  same  year,  he  was  married  to 
Ellen  Urania  Clark,  of  Cambridge,  Massachusetts ,  a 
teacher  of  literature,  a  woman  of  rare  culture  and  attain- 
ments. 

To  characterize  the  personality  of  Professor  Gill, 
seems  like  a  superfluous  task.  Such  terms  as  geniality, 
friendliness,  unselfishness,  faithfulness,  liberality,  crowd 
one's  mind  as  descriptive  of  Dr.  Gill's  personal  life.  He 
was  known  by  everyone,  the  village  child,  the  laborer, 
the  co-worker;  and  respected  most  when  best  known. 
His  life  enshrined  Tennyson's  noble  words : 

"Kind  hearts  are  more  than  coronets, 
And  simple  faith  than  Norman  blood." 

His  philosophy  of  life  was  formed  early  in  his  teach- 
ing career.  He  determined  to  put  his  whole  life  into  the 
daily  class-room  work.  He  dedicated  his  best  energies 

13 


to  the  elimination  of  what  was  wrong  and  untrue  in 
young  minds,  and  to  the  inculcation  of  what  was  right 
and  true.  He  made  his  class-room  a  workshop  of  char- 
acter and  learning,  and  tried  to  better  the  daily  products 
that  came  from  these  tasks. 

He  was  always  enthusiastic  on  the  subject  of  the 
Classics,  particularly  the  Greek.  He  believed,  as  do  many 
of  our  greatest  teachers,  that  there  is  still  "no  better  drill 
ground  for  a  young,  growing  mind  than  an  average  page 
of  Latin  or  Greek." 

Greater  than  all  else,  he  was  a  prophet  of  the  larger 
view  of  things.  He  believed  in  the  essential  resasonable- 
ness  of  the  Christian  life,  as  a  life  of  service ;  and  his  de- 
votion and  faithfulness  in  little  as  well  as  great  duties, 
developed  a  character  which  bespoke  immortality.  Let- 
ters written,  as  it  were,  at  the  very  brink  of  the  grave 
have  the  spiritual  vigor  and  potency  of  the  more  abun- 
dant life,  the  life  everlasting. 

As  young  in  spirit  as  when  he  began  teaching,  open- 
minded  toward  the  newest  and  best  that  each  new  day 
brought,  giving  his  best,  even  when  strength  waned ;  the 
one  ardent  desire  that  found  expression  in  every  heart 
was  many  years  of  usefulness  and  blessing.  Such  desire 
too  will  be  realized,  for  the  influence  of  Dr.  Gill,  the 
genius  of  his  friendship,  his  scholarly,  manly  outlook 
upon  life;  his  moral  faithfulness  and  religious  courage 
still  live  to  bless  The  Pennsylvania  State  College. 

Dr.  Gill  died  on  Sunday,  February  nth,  1912,  at  the 
Church  Home  and  Infirmary,  Baltimore,  Maryland.  He 
was  tenderly  laid  to  rest  at  Wilbraham,  Massachusetts,  on 
Wednesday,  February  I4th,  amid  surroundings  that  be- 
tokened eloquently  the  many-sided  affection  and  esteem 
which  continuously  crowned  his  life. 

14 


I  can  conceive  no  more  fitting  conclusion  to  this 
sketch  than  the  tribute  paid  Dr.  Gill  by  him  whose  silent 
form  rests  within  the  shadow  of  the  Auditorium,  in  which 
the  services  and  ministries  of  both  lives  so  often  blended : 
"Faithful  Friend;  a  Wise  and  Patient  Counselor;  an 
Exemplar  of  the  Best  Standards  of  Manly  College  Life 
and  Learning. 

'Integer  vitae 
Scelerisque  purus.' " 

An  Address  delivered  at  the  Memorial  Service  at 
State  College. 


II.     BENJAMIN  GILL:  AN  APPRECIATION 

BY  FRED  LEWIS  PATTEE 

The  services  which  Benjamin  Gill  rendered  to  The 
Pennsylvania  State  College  were  three-fold.  First  of 
all,  he  brought  a  genial  personality,  one  that  made  friends 
easily  and  that  inspired  confidence  quickly  and  held  it 
permanently.  His  hearty  laugh,  his  countenance  beam- 
ing with  fun,  his  inexhaustible  store  of  wit  and  anecdotes 
made  him  welcome  wherever  he  might  go.  Everybody 
knew  him  and  everybody  loved  him.  He  was  the  prince 
of  afterdinner  speakers  and  the  centre  always  of  social 
gatherings. 

It  was  this  power  of  compelling  confidence,  of  win- 
ning friendship,  and  of  holding  it,  of  radiating  sympathy, 
of  entering  actively  into  the  lives  of  others,  that  made  his 
greatest  impress  upon  the  student  body  of  the  college. 
I  can  do  no  better  than  quote  from  a  letter  written  to 
Mrs.  Gill,  February  I2th,  1912,  by  one  of  the  students : 

"Dr.  Gill  was  always  very  dear  to  me,  and  especially 


15 


so  after  the  death  of  my  father,  for  he  seemed  to  take 
such  a  kindly  interest  in  me,  and  smoothed  out  the  diffi- 
cult places  in  his  own  dignified,  unpretentious  way,  so  that 
I  have  always  felt  indebted  to  him.  His  influence  among 
the  students  I  have  always  felt  was  not  sufficiently  known 
or  appreciated.  He  had  a  kindly  interest  in  all  with 
whom  he  came  in  contact.  In  spirit  he  was  somewhat  of 
a  boy  himself  and  so  could  understand  younger  men ;  and 
with  them  he  was  approachable.  His  keen  sense  of 
humor  ever  made  him  popular  wherever  he  went.  Occa- 
sionally Dr.  Gill  would  talk  with  me  about  young  men 
at  the  college  in  whom  he  had  an  especial  interest,  of 
which  interest  the  individual  concerned  frequently  had  no 
knowledge.  While  he  worked  as  an  undercurrent,  I  am 
glad  to  say  he  had  the  courage  of  his  convictions,  and 
never  hesitated  to  show  on  which  side  he  stood  when  it 
was  necessary  to  take  a  stand.  His  many  years  of  ser- 
vice must  stand  as  a  tower  of  strength,  and  among  those 
who  knew  him  he  will  ever  be  held  in  the  highest  esteem. 
This  is  but  a  poor  testimonial  of  his  true  value  and  posi- 
tion, but  I  wished  to  express  it,  for  I  knew  it  must  be  the 
viewpoint  of  many  of  the  students  whose  good  fortune  it 
was  to  meet  and  to  know  your  husband." 

And  to  those  who  worked  nearer  to  him  what  a 
friend  he  was.  How  it  lifted  one  to  his  best  to  receive 
letters  from  him  with  passages  in  them  like  this : 

"And  again  I  hope  we  shall  knuckle  into  another 
year  not  to  think  what  we  shall  get  out  of  it  so  much  as 
what  we  shall  do  in  it.  Here's  with  you,  dear  old  friend, 
here's  with  you  for  a  life  more  solid  than  ever  to  all  that 
is  good  and  true." 

"Beloved,  one  thing  is  sure.  If  we  sought  the  world 
over  we  might  find  a  nobler  salary,  more  privileges  of 

16 


town  or  city,  but  should  we  find  a  cleaner  and  more  in- 
telligent friendship?  Should  we  find  more  inspiring  out- 
look ?  More  chance  to  help  ?  I  hardly  think  it.  I  have 
a  feeling  that  here  we  instill  into  men  the  manhood  of 
facing  life  and  of  taking  it  steadily  and  whole  as  Matthew 
Arnold  says.  Here  is  with  you  for  another  year  to  put 
more  manhood  into  young  men.  It  is  a  privilege.  God 
grant  we  may  not  betray  it." 

"Thank  you  for  the  dear  note.  Read  carefully  and 
slowly  Ephesians  3:  14-21.  That  prayer  is  my  prayer 
for  you.  God  bless  you,  old  boy,  and  hold  you  fast." 

The  second  service  that  Benjamin  Gill  rendered  to 
the  college  was  the  bringing  and  the  disseminating  of  an 
atmosphere  of  true  culture.  He  was  of  the  old  school  in 
the  exactness  and  breadth  of  his  knowledge  of  all  that 
is  best  in  the  higher  realms  of  man's  thinking  and  feeling. 
He  had  read  with  careful  study  practically  all  of  the  lead- 
ing classics  in  the  Greek  and  the  Latin  languages,  and 
many  of  them  he  knew  literally  by  heart.  He  was  closely 
familiar  with  the  German  and  its  literature,  he  had  some 
knowledge  of  Italian  and  Spanish,  and  he  knew,  as  few 
of  the  present  day  know,  the  entire  range  of  English  Lit- 
erature. Wordsworth,  Tennyson,  Browning,  Arnold, 
Thackery,  Dickens,  he  read  and  reread  until  he  knew 
them  almost  as  he  knew  his  Bible. 

No  man  ever  read  more  than  he.  His  letters  are  re- 
dolent of  the  beauties  of  his  reading.  Not  once  did  he 
write  without  allusion  to  the  great  books  with  which  he 
was  in  contact. 

"I  am  bathing  my  soul  in  Samuel  Longfellow's 
Life  of  Henry  W.  Longfellow.  It  is  a  sweetly  inspiring 
book.  Like  the  Life  and  Letters  of  George  Ticknor,  it 


17 


gives  one  calm,  and  a  more  wholesome  view  of  life  and 
more  unquestioning  trust  and  faith." 

"I  have  bought  several  different  volumes  of  prayers : 
Dr.  Samuel  Johnson's,  Theodore  Parker's,  and  a  volume 
of  prayers  ancient  and  modern  which  I  am  reading  with 
comfort  and  profit.  I  am  just  finishing  Foster's  Dickens 
and  reading  Goldsmith's  Citizen  of  the  World.  I  have 
read  perhaps  one  hundred  and  fifty  pages  of  Livy  at  odds 
and  ends  of  time  since  term  began.  Mrs.  Gill  and  I  are 
reading  Lockhart's  Scott,  and  I  have  just  finished  after 
nearly  a  year  Heroes  and  Hero  Worship,  Sartor,  and  The 
French  Revolution.  So  you  see  I  fire  very  scattering 
and  loose  where  I  please.  Livy  is  wonderful  when  one 
gets  the  swing  of  him." 

"You  ask  how  I  am  passing  my  vacation.  Well, 
actively  I  assure  you.  My  long  vacations  have  always 
been  times  of  enlarged  study.  I  have  in  such  times 
read  much  German  and  Greek  particularly,  and  since  I 
came  out  here,  in  Latin  and  in  French.  Knowledge  is  so 
vast.  I  want  to  compass  some  of  it.  The  little  short 
story  of  Balzac,  Eugene  Grandet  is  an  absolute  revela- 
tion. The  power  to  build  up  a  character,  to  see  beauties 
and  defects  in  character,  to  apply  the  microscope  and  the 
lance :  the  power  to  detail  the  setting  of  things !  Balzac 
is  a  wonder,  a  wonder!  I  have  read  since  I  wrote  you 
Agesilaus,  Hiero,  Economics.  Tuttle  loaned  me  Sara- 
cinesca,  San?  Ilario,  and  Don  Orsino.  They  are  very 
strong  indeed.  Crawford  has  a  royal  imagination  and 
strong  passion." 

"I  try  to  keep  in  close  touch  with  those  spirits  who 
have  enlightened  the  generations  and  kept  up  the  tone 
and  fibre  of  the  race.  The  man  who  has  within  arm's 


18 


reach  the  best  thoughts  of  Moses,  Isaiah,  Jesus,  Paul,  of 
Dante,  Milton,  Shakespeare,  of  Homer,  Herodotus, 
Thucydides,  Plato,  Aristotle,  of  Cicero,  Virgil,  Horace, 
Ovid,  of  Goethe,  Schiller,  Lessing,  of  Chateubriand,  La- 
martine,  Rousseau,  Sand,  Hugo,  Bossuet — but  then  why 
ennumerate? — ought  to  be  taken  out  and  flogged  if  he 
grumbles.  If  I  had  my  Bible  and  Whittier  only  I  would 
be  happy.  How  much  more  with  all  the  unspeakable 
wealth  of  innumerable  others !  All  these  boundless  treas- 
ures paralyze  me  whenever  I  think  of  putting  my  own 
pen  to  paper.  Blessed  books!  Blessed  opportunity  I 
have  had  to  read  them !  I  am  thankful  for  it  all,  God 
knows." 

During  the  last  six  months  of  his  life,  although 
racked  almost  constantly  with  pain,  he  read  nearly  the 
whole  of  Wordsworth  and  of  Sophocles,  much  of  Plato, 
and  every  morning  a  section  from  the  Greek  Testament. 
This  element  in  the  life  of  Dr.  Gill  had  its  effect  upon  the 
college.  It  made  his  teaching  vital.  His  pupils  drew 
ever  from  the  living  stream  and  never  from  the  stagnant 
pool.  And  its  effect  overflowed  his  class-rooms  and 
permeated  the  whole  community.  Wherever  he  went  he 
carried  with  him  an  atmosphere  of  scholarship  in  its 
broadest  sense,  and  of  culture  which  was  a  constant  re- 
buke to  that  modern  spirit  that  tends  to  build  upon  the 
merely  material  for  quick  returns  of  mere  material  things. 

He  added  little  to  the  published  literature  of  his 
time,  though  for  years  he  wrote  constantly  and  volumi- 
nously. "My  sixteen  efforts  at  the  college  during  the 
year,"  he  once  wrote  me,  "would  make  a  good-sized 
octavo."  All  of  his  sermons,  even  his  "talks"  to  the 
Epworth  League  and  at  prayer  meetings,  he  wrote  care- 
fully out,  putting  upon  them  a  literary  finish  and  a  beauty 

19 


of  style  that  makes  them  rank  really  as  literature  of  dis- 
tinction. His  great  love  of  literature  and  his  high  criti- 
cal standards  made  him  hesitate  to  offer  work  for  publi- 
cation. 

At  soul  he  was  a  poet.  "If  my  power  to  write 
poetry,"  he  once  wrote  me,  "had  been  equal  to  my  love  of 
it,  I  should  have  excelled  Shakespeare  or  Homer."  If 
the  poetic  passages  were  culled  from  his  letters  and  ser- 
mons they  would  make  a  rare  anthology.  He  loved  na- 
ture intensely.  His  letters  often  began  with  the  setting  of 
the  season  or  a  picture  of  the  beauty  of  the  day. 

Writing  March  28  he  says,  "The  elms  have  put  out 
their  little  tassels  and  now  are  shyly  starting  their  leaves. 
The  warmth  of  the  bluebird's  note,  the  lyric  fragment 
now  and  then  of  the  song  sparrow,  the  rat-tat-tat  of  the 
woodpecker,  the  robin  with  his  chi-lop,  chi-lop,  chi-lop, 
chi-lee,  make  a  variety  of  melody  sufficient  to  scare  away 
the  tortures  of  rheumatism." 

And  again: 

"Before  the  shadows  envelop  it  I  would  say,  old 
Tussey  is  in  his  white  robe,  the  fields  by  Boalsburg  are 
beautiful,  the  trees  down  the  avenue  are  bare,  but  beau- 
tiful, so  beautiful,  as  we  know  they  are  preparing  to  bloom 
and  leaf  again. 

'And  we,  new  rising  from  the  tomb, 
In  lustre  brighter  far  shall  shine 

in  ever-during  bloom, 

Safe  from  diseases  and  decline.' " 

The  third  service  that  Dr.  Gill  rendered  the  college 
came  from  his  deep  and  rich  religious  life.  For  years  he 
occupied  the  college  pulpit  on  alternate  Sundays.  No 
other  man  in  the  history  of  State  College  preached  so 
many  times  to  the  students,  and  his  message  was  always 

20 


sane,  always  practical,  and  always  inspiring.  Narrow- 
ness and  prejudice  had  no  place  in  that  clear  atmosphere. 
He  preached  a  free  gospel  from  a  free  platform.  He  was 
tolerant  as  no  other  man  I  have  ever  known,  and  sympa- 
thetic, and  human.  He  stood  for  helpfulness  to  all,  in- 
dependent of  race  or  creed ;  and  standing  always  thus 
he  became  a  help  to  all.  He  took  with  tremendous 
seriousness  his  responsibility  as  leader  of  the  religious 
life  of  the  college.  He  gave  his  very  best  without  stint 
of  toil.  A  passage  from  one  of  his  letters  reveals  just 
a  hint  of  his  methods : 

"My  daily  chapel :  this  year  I  am  using  the  utmost 
care  with  it.  I  am  making  the  most  careful  selections  of 
scripture  each  day.  Then  I  build  up  a  prayer  largely  on 
some  thought  or  thoughts  in  the  selection  and  written  out 
in  full.  This  I  commit  to  memory  or  familiarize  myself 
with  it." 

The  whole  atmosphere  of  his  life  was  religious.  He 
was  saturated  with  the  old  hymns  of  the  church,  the 
Bible  he  had  at  his  tongue's  end,  and  those  who  were 
privileged  to  walk  with  him  on  sunny  afternoons  far  into 
the  country  round  about  the  college  knew  how  inspiring- 
ly  he  could  talk  of  the  great  leaders  of  the  Christian 
church  and  the  vital  religious  history  of  the  wonderful 
century  of  which  he  had  been  a  part. 

His  faith  was  childlike.  Though  often  shaken  by 
doubtings  and  questionings  which  his  active  mind 
brought  vividly  before  him,  he  never  once  doubted  the 
reality  of  God  and  of  his  own  personal  relations  to  Jesus 
Christ. 

"My  faith  in  God  grows  deeper  and  my  hope  in 
Christ  was  never  more  strong.  I  wish  I  lived  the  religi- 

21 


ous  life  as  well  as  I  know  and  have  been  taught.  But 
He  understands  and  forgives.  Pray  for  me  and  mine 
as  I  do  for  you  and  yours,  and  may  love  shelter  us  all 
our  days." 

Receiving  a  letter  from  him  was  always  to  receive 
a  benediction  that  sweetened  and  lightened  not  only  the 
day,  but  the  whole  week  and  the  month.  What  wonder- 
ful endings  always  to  his  letters: 

"Many  glorious  years  to  you  on  this  side  of  the 
flood  and  many,  many  more  in  the  eternal  years  of  God." 

And  his  faith  grew  brighter  as  his  body  grew 
weaker.  How  cheerly  he  wrote  in  those  last  years  of  his 
life! 

"It  is  not  growing  old.  I  do  not  call  it  that.  I  am 
living  now  ten  times  faster  than  I  ever  have  and  with 
more  appreciation  of  the  rich  circumstances  of  life.  But 
the  machine  in  which  I  live  shows  now  and  then  signs 
of  needing  repairs.  The  inhabitant  is  lively,  but  his 
house, — oh,  the  weather  attacks  it  and  it's  behind  the 
times,  but  it  has  done  me  good  service  in  England  and 
America  for  sixty-six  years." 

It  has  been  my  privilege  to  see  some  of  his  words 
written  during  his  last  period  of  illness.  When  it  was 
determined  that  a  surgical  operation  must  be  made  if  his 
life  was  to  be  prolonged,  knowing  the  chances  were  all 
against  him  he  wrote  in  a  firm  hand  full  instructions  as 
to  what  should  be  done  with  his  property  and  what  gen- 
eral plans  were  to  be  followed  in  case  of  his  death. 
Then  he  added  these  words: 

"I  am  a  Methodist  with  all  my  might,  which  ought 
to  mean  a  simple  follower  of  Jesus.  Let  no  words  of 
praise  be  spoken  over  me,  or  make  them  few.  I  have 
tried  to  do  as  well  as  I  could  what  I  have  been  set  to  do. 


I  die  in  the  faith  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  complete 
trust  in  the  goodness  of  God.  No  impression  made  upon 
me  while  on  this  planet  compares  with  that  left  by  Jesus 
Christ.  O  such  love,  and  all  for  me!  Let  the  meta- 
physics of  it  be  buried  as  deep  as  Hades,  the  joy  of  it  I 
know  and  can  swear  to.  I  have  tried  to  give  my  life  in 
common  ways  in  common  service." 

And  here  is  a  note  written  to  Mrs.  Gill  from  the 
hospital  a  few  moments  before  the  operation : 

"The  Lord  is  my  light  and  my  salvation.  Of  whom 
shall  I  be  afraid?  In  this  sublime  universe  of  Our 
Father,  think  of  it !  In  this  world  where  Jesus  has  left 
the  traces  of  his  unselfish  sacrifice  and  love ;  in  this  world 
where  wife  and  children  have  given  back  love  for  love 

in  such  a  world,  fear  ?  Fear ! !  No  more ! 

Fight  and  victory  and  greater  victories  in  this  world  or 
others.  Pray  for  me.  I  am  in  perfect  hope  and  trust." 

And  I  cannot  forbear  giving  the  final  entries  in  the 
diary  which  he  had  kept  for  nearly  half  a  century.  They 
are  the  true  measure  of  the  man. 

"Sunday,  February  4,  1912.  Full  of  brightness; 
such  quiet  bliss.  I  do  not  understand  it. 

'Lord,  it  belongs  not  to  my  care 

Whether  I  die  or  live; 
To  live  and  serve  thee  is  my  share, 

And  this  thy  grace  must  give. 
'Christ  leads  me  through  no  darker  room 

Than  He  went  through  before; 
He  that  into  God's  Kingdom  comes 

Must  enter  by  His  door. 

'Come,  Lord,  when  grace  has  made  me  meet 

Thy  blessed  face  to  see, 
For  if  thy  work  on  earth  be  sweet 

What  will  thy  glory  be?'" 


"Monday,  February  5,  1912.  Good  sleep.  Beauti- 
ful dreams :  Thackeray,  Dickens,  Longfellow  and  I  at  a 
dinner  together.  Kittie  and  I  sang,  'When  He  Cometh,' 
'Jesus,  the  very  Thought  of  Thee/  'Behold  a  Stranger  at 
the  Door,'  'Let  us  with  a  Gladsome  Mind.'  After  din- 
ner went  to  sleep.  Shall  I  awake  in  His  likeness?" 

The  life  of  Benjamin  Gill  has  become  a  part  of  The 
Pennsylvania  State  College.  He  came  to  it  just  as  his 
powers  were  at  their  fruiting  point  and  he  gave  to  it  all 
of  his  best  years.  The  transplanting  from  the  older  soil 
of  Massachusetts  seemed  peculiarly  to  fructify  and  stim- 
ulate him.  He  reached  his  highest  powers,  as  one  can 
see  from  his  sermons,  during  the  vital  decade  of  his  life 
between  1900  and  1910.  His  stamp  upon  the  college 
during  that  decade  is  indeed  a  deep  one.  He  has  become 
a  tradition  and  one  of  the  most  precious  traditions  of  the 
college.  Happy  the  institution  that  has  built  a  soul  like 
his  into  the  foundations  of  its  life. 

An  address  delivered  at  the  Memorial  Service  at  State 
College. 


III.     A  TRIBUTE  TO  BENJAMIN  GILL 

PROFESSOR   C.   T.   WINCHESTER,    L.    H.   D. 

If  I  rise  to  say  a  few  words  besides  the  coffin  that 
holds  all  that  was  mortal  of  Benjamin  Gill,  it  is  not  to 
present  any  eulogy  upon  him,  still  less  to  attempt  any 
cool  analysis  of  his  character.  I  only  want  to  say  what 
hundreds  would  say  were  they  here — "The  man  that  is 
gone  was  my  friend,  and  I  loved  him  like  a  brother." 
And  I  am  sure  that  of  all  the  multitude  who  would  say 
that  truthfully,  no  one  has  better  cause  to  say  it  than  I 


have.  I  have  known  Benjamin  Gill  forty-seven  years — 
ever  since  we  were  boys  together  here  at  school,  and  used 
to  meet  in  these  old  class-rooms  or  ramble  together  over 
the  dear  old  Wilbraham  hills.  Then  we  were  in  college 
together.  When  we  left  college  our  paths  diverged  a 
little,  but  I  think  there  has  never  been  a  year  in  all  of 
the  forty-two  years  since  that  time  when  we  have  not,  b> 
word  of  mouth  or  by  letter,  exchanged  some  friendly 
greetings  with  each  other.  He  was  the  one  and  only 
man  of  all  my  college  friends  from  whom  I  never  had 
any  secrets.  He  knew  my  heart,  and  I  think  I  knew  his. 
Our  lives  ran  in  different  though  parallel  paths,  but  he 
was  bound  to  me  by  all  the  fraternal  ties  that  can  link 
two  men  who  must  live  apart;  and  in  all  these  years  I 
have  had  no  friend  (outside  the  circle  of  my  own  house- 
hold), so  intimate  and  so  dear  as  he — the  friend  who 
linked  my  boyhood  to  my  manhood  and  my  maturer  years 
in  ties  of  work  and  memory  and  love. 

I  think  Benjamin  Gill  had  a  positive  genius  for 
friendship,  a  gift  to  make  and  keep  friends.  He  was  not 
a  weak  or  dependent  man;  on  the  contrary,  he  was 
essentially  a  manly  man.  He  knew  how  to  stand  alone, 
and  firmly,  if  need  be.  But  there  was  nothing  austere  or 
distant  about  him.  His  big  heart  was  full  of  sympathy. 
He  craved  companionship,  the  cheer  of  genial  inter- 
course, the  stimulus  of  common  interests,  and  all  the 
sympathies  that  warm  and  brighten  life. 

And  what  a  friend  he  was !  He  had  so  many  of  the 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart  that  make  life  sweet  and 
wholesome.  He  was  one  of  the  most  cheerful  of  men. 
Life,  indeed,  for  him  had  never  been  smooth  or  easy.  I 
think  he  had  to  gain  by  toil  and  struggle  whatever  he  at- 
tained in  early  life,  and  all  through  his  life  he  had  to  bear 

25 


almost  all  forms  of  trial  and  disappointment  and  suffer- 
ing that  can  come  to  any  man  without  his  fault.  It  was 
no  wonder,  then,  that  he  had  moods  of  despondency  and 
discouragement.  Yet  he  kept  through  it  all  the  hope  and 
cheer  of  youth ;  there  was  a  great  deal  of  the  boy  in  him 
to  the  last.  Of  all  the  hymns  he  knew  and  loved — and 
how  many  he  knew — I  think  he  loved  best  Addison's 
"When  all  Thy  mercies,  O  my  God !"  He  told  me  once 
that  in  the  days  of  pain  and  weariness  in  the  hospital  a 
year  ago,  he  used  to  repeat  it,  from  the  first  word  to  the 
last,  at  least  once  a  day,  and  would  sing  it  over  silently 
to  himself  in  the  sleepless  hours  of  the  night.  Of  that 
hymn  there  is  one  stanza  that  always  seems  to  me  meant 
for  him: 

"Ten  thousand  thousand  precious  gifts 

My  daily  thanks  employ; 
Nor  is  the  least  a  cheerful  heart 

That  tastes  those  gifts  with  joy." 

That  was  Benjamin  Gill.  He  had  a  cheerful  heart 
that  tasted  the  gifts  of  life  with  joy. 

He  had  that  excellent  gift  of  humor — the  power  to 
enjoy  all  the  pleasing  contrasts  of  life.  And  what  a 
good  humor  it  was ;  jovial,  yet  pure  and  sweet  and  kindly 
always;  without  a  trace  of  bitterness  or  vulgarity.  He 
had  a  laugh  that  it  was  good  to  hear.  I  shall  hear  it 
always.  Not  the  thin  laugh  of  the  satirist ;  still  less  the 
empty  and  vapid  laugh  of  the  mere  jester — "like  the 
crackling  of  thorns  under  a  pot" — but  the  big,  hearty, 
wholesome  laugh  "that  doeth  good  like  a  medicine." 

And  he  had  the  gift  of  song  if  any  man  ever  had. 
I  have  said  that  I  shall  not  forget  his  laugh;  certainly  1 
shall  never  forget  his  voice.  I  shall  hear  it  when  every- 
thing else  for  me  is  silent — the  voice  I  used  to  hear  when 


we  sang  together  in  our  college  days,  sometimes  the 
goodly  hymns  of  the  faith,  sometimes  in  lighter  mood  the 
careless  songs  of  youth,  sung  through  the  college  halls 
or  roaming  up  and  down  the  moonlighted  streets  of  the 
dear  old  college  town.  It  has  been  my  fortune  to  listen 
for  more  than  forty  years  to  the  never-ending  chorus  in 
which  one  generation  after  another  of  college  boys  pour 
out  their  joy  in  song;  but  I  have  never  heard  a  voice  that, 
in  mingled  sweetness  and  fullness,  could  compare  with 
his.  He  sang  from  his  heart — the  whole  of  him  sang.  I 
can  see  him  now  as  his  face  lighted  up  and  his  eyes 
twinkled,  and  he  gave  a  peculiar  lift  to  his  head  as  he 
threw  himself  into  his  singing.  In  later  years,  with 
heavier  burdens  and  failing  strength,  he  doubtless  sang 
oftenest — when  he  could  sing  at  all — those  hymns  where- 
with the  trusting  heart  strengthens  its  faith  or  soothes 
its  sorrow;  but  I  think  he  never  quite  forgot  those  old 
songs  of  carefree  youth.  The  last  time  he  was  ever  in 
my  house,  I  remember,  we  tried  to  see  whether  the  voice 
of  age  could  still  sound  some  of  those  young  and  careless 
notes,  and  grew  young  together  over  those  olden  melo- 
dies. I  cannot  help  believeing  that  when  his  voice  learns 
the  new  song  he  cannot  quite  forget  all  the  old  ones; 
and  that  wherever  he  dwells  now,  he  will  still  have  some 
recollection  of  those  olden  and  golden  days  of  youth 
here,  "when  our  mouth  was  filled  with  laughter  and  our 
lips  with  singing." 

We  all  thought  of  Professor  Gill  as  the  student  and 
the  scholar ;  and  such  he  assuredly  was.  There  was  rare 
intellectual  companionship  with  him.  If  culture  consists 
in  knowing  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and  said  in 
the  world,  then  I  count  few  men  of  my  acquaintance 
more  generally  cultured  than  he.  He  was  universally 

27 


recognized  as  a  most  excellent  teacher  of  the  classics, 
especially  of  Greek.  Hundreds  of  men  who  studied  in 
his  class-room  can  attest  that.  I  do  not  say  much  of  his 
work  as  a  teacher,  because  I  personally  never  knew  him 
in  the  class-room;  but  assuredly  he  must  have  been  a 
good  teacher,  for  he  was  himself  filled  with  the  truest 
spirit  of  that  literature  he  taught.  Greek  literature, 
especially  the  Greek  dramatists  and  Plato,  were  a  delight 
to  him  to  the  very  end  of  his  life.  I  have  never  yet 
known  a  man  who  found  such  inspiration  and  solace  in 
the  best  literature,  all  his  days.  It  was  a  delight  to  talk 
with  him  about  his  reading,  or  to  get  letters  from  him. 
Those  letters  were  always  full,  not  only  of  keen  enjoy- 
ment of  his  studies,  but  of  the  heartiest  appreciation  and 
the  most  discriminating  criticism.  The  very  last  letter  I 
had  from  him — a  letter  every  word  of  which  deserves  to 
be  written  in  gold — was  written  in  failing  strength  only 
about  two  months  ago,  on  the  last  Thanksgiving  Day. 
"I  am  going  to  try  for  an  old-fashioned  letter,"  he  said, 
"though  I  suppose  my  doctor  would  say  no."  Then  he 
tells  me,  among  many  other  things  I  shall  always  keep  in 
memory,  how  even  in  those  days  he  enjoys  his  reading. 
"It  is  the  old  books  and  the  choice  books  now,"  he  said, 
"for  time  is  short."  "The  Bible  always."  (He  always 
read  it  through  once  a  year.)  Then  he  says:  "I  am 
reading  a  little  Plato  every  evening  now;  something  of 
the  old  familiar  Sophocles  'who  saw  life  steadily  and 
saw  it  whole;'  and  just  now,"  he  adds,  "I  am  going 
all  through  Wordsworth  again,  and  with  what  com- 
fort! Wordsworth,  better  than  any  one  else,  knows 
how  to  unite  what  is  temporal  with  what  is  spiritual.  I 
thank  God  I  shall  not  go  out  of  this  world  without  the 
knowledge  of  Wordsworth,  Tennyson  and  Browning." 


Fewer  men  ever  knew  them  better  than  he  did,  for  he 
knew  them  by  heart.  The  best  the  world  has  to  give,  in 
at  least  three  great  literatures,  he  knew  in  this  way. 
He  had  taken  it  into  his  life. 

But  you  are  thinking  it  strange,  perhaps,  that  I  am 
saying  so  little  of  the  distinctively  religious  life  of  this 
man.  Ah!  my  friends,  that  was  just  the  secret  of  the 
beauty  and  power  of  his  influence ;  he  had  no  distinctively 
religious  life — it  was  all  religious.  He  could  say — as 
he  so  often  sang — 

"I  know  no  life  divided, 

O  Lord  of  Life,  from  Thee!" 

I  think  of  Benjamin  Gill  as  just  as  religious  in  his 
hours  of  work,  yes,  in  his  hours  of  play  and  of  genial 
humor,  as  in  his  hours  of  devotion.  There  was  a  rare  in- 
tegrity in  his  life — that  wholeness  which  is  really  holi- 
ness. 

But  all  those  who  know  him  well  knew  how  devout 
a  soul  he  was,  how  strong  was  his  faith  and  how  tender 
his  love.  Ever  since  those  early  days  when  we  knelt  in 
the  old  church,  which  stood  where  this  one  now  stands, 
and  pledged  our  resolve  to  lead  a  religious  life  (though  he 
began  a  little  earlier  than  I),  ever  since  those  days,  his 
friendship  and  his  example  have  been  an  inspiration  and 
a  stimulus  to  all  good  things  for  me.  Rarely  or  never 
have  I  received  a  letter  from  him  in  which  he  had  not 
something  to  say  of  his  religious  faith  and  feeling;  and 
always  in  language  perfectly  simple  and  spontaneous, 
without  the  first  note  of  pietism  or  affectation.  It  was  as 
natural  as  the  talk  of  his  work  or  his  plans  or  his  friends. 
He  was  called  to  pass  through  times  of  trial  and  dark- 
ness, but  I  know  how  his  faith  sustained  him  then.  Nor 


was  he  by  any  means  ignorant  of  all  the  questioning  and 
doubt  of  our  modern  time.  He  said  to  me  once,  as  he 
had  been  reading  from  Matthew  Arnold:  "I  have 
Arnold's  Dover  Beach  mood  sometimes,  oftener  than  I 
ought,  perhaps ;  but  my  soul  feels  all  the  keener  thrill 
with  Rugby  Chapel."  He  was,  indeed,  to  hosts  of  young 
people,  just  what  Arnold  of  Rugby  was. 

In  the  last  months  of  his  life  he  knew  pain  and 
weariness  and  suffering  in  all  their  extremest  forms, 
with  all  the  mournful  alternations  of  hope  and  dis- 
couragement. But  he  never  murmured  and  he  nevei 
despaired.  "I  am  fighting  a  tiresome  fight  for  life,"  he 
wrote  me  in  that  letter,  last  Thanksgiving.  "I  hope  to 
win;  but.  God  is  good  and  gracious,  and  I  am  happy  in 
His  love  and  the  simple  faith  of  our  fathers.  God  lets  me 
confront  the  whole  universe  every  day.  All  the  land- 
scape is  opened  out  before  me,  and  nobody  owns  it  any 
more  than  I  do ;  and  He  has  revealed  the  infinite  in  my 
soul,  too.  There  is  a  cry  for  life  in  me  all  the  time ;  but 
it  is  a  cry  for  whatsover  things  are  noble,  whatsoever 
things  are  just,  whatsoever  things  are  lovely  and  of  good 
report.  That  means  real  life,  don't  you  think  so?  He 
who  has  lavished  so  much  upon  me  will  not  leave  me 
comfortless.  He  will  come  to  me."  That  was  the  cry 
of  this  man,  always  a  cry  for  life,  but  not  merely  for  the 
life  of  blood  and  breath ;  rather  a  cry  for  whatsoever  things 
are  true,  noble,  lovely,  just  and  of  good  report,  the  things 
that  indeed  make  real  life.  And  no  pain  or  weariness, 
no  disappointment  in  his  expectations,  no  frustration  of 
his  plans,  could  ever  silence  that  cry,  could  ever  chill 
his  grateful  love  to  the  God  who  had  implanted  such  de- 
sires in  his  heart,  or  could  ever  extinguish  his  faith  that 
those  desires  would  somewhere,  somehow,  be  divinely 

80 


satisfied.  He  would  have  liked  to  live  longer,  but  he  was 
ready  to  go.  There  was  work  all  about  him  he  would 
well  have  liked  to  do — work  that  seemed  set  to  his  hand, 
and  that  he  must  leave  unfinished.  But  his  work  was 
really  not  unfinished.  Of  a  life  like  his,  so  full  of  work, 
nobly,  lovingly,  gently  done,  so  full  of  burdens  patiently 
borne,  and  yet  so  full  of  joy  and  cheer  and  help  to  thou- 
sands of  hearts,  a  life  that  carries  with  it  into  the  unseen 
the  memory  and  the  love  of  hosts  of  others — of  such  a 
life  let  us  not  say  that  it  is  unfinished.  Say,  rather,  that 
it  is  finished  here  as  God  willed,  to  be  continued  there  as 
God  will — "on  the  earth  the  broken  arc;  in  the  heavens 
the  perfect  round."  Life  will  be  lonelier  to  some  of  us 
now  that  he  is  gone,  but  for  him  there  is  no  cause  for 
sighing  or  regret ;  and  for  those  of  us  who  a  little  longer 
stay,  God  grant  that  we  may  do  our  work  as  faithfully 
as  he  did  his,  and  bear  our  trials — should  Heaven  please 
to  bring  them  upon  us — as  patiently,  nay,  even  as  thank- 
fully, as  he  did  his ;  and,  in  the  meantime,  remember  as  we 
think  on  him  and  on  ourselves,  that,  as  he  so  often  sang, 

"All  the  servants  of  our  God 
In  earth  and  heaven  are  one." 

— Delivered  at  the  funeral  services  at  Wilbrakam,  Feb- 
ruary 14,  1911. 


.81 


PART  II. 
SERMONS  AND  ADDRESSES 


SERMONS  AND  ADDRESSES 


I.     GLIMPSES  OF  TRAVEL 

We  are  at  Chester  Station  though  the  old  city  is 
yonder  on  the  hill.  Let  us  take  this  horse-car  and  in 
five  minutes  we  shall  be  within  the  wall.  The  street  we 
are  now  travelling  was  laid  by  Roman  soldiers,  or  at 
least  dug  by  them  out  of  the  solid  rock.  Many  a  time 
have  legions  marched  down  this  street  at  a  summons  from 
Rome.  King  Alfred  in  his  day  drew  a  line  from  Lon- 
don to  Chester  and  compelled  the  Danes  to  keep  to  the 
north  of  it.  This  gateway  with  inscriptions  and  armor- 
ial bearings  is  one  of  the  town  gates  and  the  wall  which 
you  now  see  is  grey  with  the  memories  of  nearly  two 
thousand  years.  This  wall  is  pierced  by  four  gates  at 
the  four  points  of  the  compass.  The  old  buildings  that 
face  these  two  principal  streets  are  built  in  a  manner 
peculiar  to  Chester. 

The  first  comes  square  up  to  the  driveway  of  the 
street.  The  second  story  is  let  in  to  the  depth  of  the 
rooms  on  the  first ;  and  the  third  story  comes  forward  to 
an  even  line  with  the  front  and  rests  upon  it  by  pillars, 
so  that  the  side  wall,  as  you  see,  is  covered  and  on  the 
second  story.  The  houses,  built  of  stone  or  brick,  are 
very  quaint,  the  timbers  being  left  visible  and  often 
heavily  carved  and  with  inscriptions  in  English  or  Latin. 
The  city's  pleasure  walk  is  the  top  of  the  wall,  two  miles 
in  circuit.  Shall  we  mount  it  and  walk  around  ? 


35 


It  is  a  substantial  side-walk  at  least  four  feet  broad 
of  nicely  laid  stone  flagging.  There  is  a  parapet  on  its 
outer  side  that  was  built  in  the  days  of  Edward  I.,  more 
than  six  hundred  years  ago.  Look  down  the  parapet  a 
hundred  feet  at  the  waters  of  the  canal  flowing  slowly  by. 
Here  on  the  wall  is  a  tower  where  King  Charles  stood 
and  witnessed  the  defeat  of  his  soldiers  by  Cromwell's 
troops  in  yonder  meadow. 

And  now  the  wall  grows  lower  and  to  the  right  of  us 
stretches  away  a  cricket  and  tennis  ground,  scores  of 
acres  in  extent  and  level  as  a  floor.  Along  the  bases  of 
yonder  bluffs  and  under  the  distant  bridge  must  surely 
run  the  river  Dee,  and  I  fancy  that  even  now  I  see  the 
royal  barge  of  Edgar  and  royal  subject  kings  bending  at 
the  oar  as  they  row  him  down  the  stream;  and  Isaac 
Walton  fishing  yonder  on  the  bank.  Our  walk  now 
brings  us  under  the  beetling  wall  of  the  castle  that  rises 
a  hundred  feet  above  us,  guarded  by  red-coat  sentinels. 
The  pavement  we  are  treading  now  becomes  a  balustrade 
along  the  castle  wall  and  a  shelf  above  the  river  Dee. 
But  again  we  turn  the  corner;  the  wall  becomes  a  real 
wall  again,  the  river  takes  a  more  respectful  distance, 
and  yonder  is  the  old  dilapidated  mill.  Its  predecessors, 
situated  on  this  very  spot  paid  toll  to  William  the  Con- 
queror in  the  eleventh  century.  And  yonder  for  sure 
comes  the  dusty  miller  and  with  him  the  old  and  dusty 
ditty  that  gives  the  picture  all  its  charm. 

"There  was  a  jolly  miller  once  lived  on  the  river  Dee; 
He  worked  and  sang  from  morn  till  night  no  lark  so  blithe  as  he, 
And  this  the  burden  of  his  song  forever  used  to  be: 
I  love  my  mill,  she  is  to  me  both  parent  child  and  wife, 
I  would  not  change  my  station  for  any  other  life. 
Then  push,  push,  push  the  bowl  my  boys  and  pass  it  round  to  me, 
For  the  longer  we  sit  here  and  drink  the  merrier  we  shall  be." 


36 


But  while  the  song  dies  upon  our  thought  the  cir- 
cuit of  the  wall  is  finished  and  we  are  walking  up  St. 
Werburgh  Street  to  see  one  of  the  most  venerable 
cathedrals  in  Europe — the  glory  of  Chester,  as  the  sea 
walls  are  of  Liverpool.  A  turn  in  the  street  and  its  glor- 
ies are  full  upon  us. 

The  cathedral  is  of  red  sandstone  in  the  shape  of  an 
irregular  cross  with  a  tower  at  the  intersection  of  the  two 
arms  that  rises  one  hundred  and  thirty  feet  above  the 
roof  itself.  What  graceful  pointed  Gothic  windows 
light  the  aisles!  Above  them  still,  another  row  pours 
down  upon  the  central  floor  the  light  which  seems  to 
come  direct  from  heaven.  As  one  passes  through  the 
church  yard  and  enters  the  low  door,  a  spell  of  holy 
influences  settles  down  upon  the  spirit.  How  old,  irreg- 
ular, and  broken  is  the  pavement  of  the  nave.  Ages 
since,  the  inscriptions  over  the  dead,  who  are  buried  where 
we  are  now  treading,  had  become  illegible.  But  look 
around  you  and  see  the  lessons  in  the  lapse  of  time. 
There  hangs  some  Bayeux  tapestry  centuries  old,  here 
some  banners  borne  by  English  troops  at  Bunker  Hill. 
But  the  walls  speak  most  loudly  of  the  long  generations 
who  have  here  come  and  gone  to  wonder  and  worship 
since  time  was  young.  The  cathedral  seems  to  have 
grown  with  the  growth  of  architecture,  for  it  is  the  Nor- 
man and  Early  English.  The  decorated  and  perpendicu- 
lar Gothic  styles  combine  to  show  builders  of  widely  dif- 
ferent tastes  and  separated  through  long  years. 

Its  lofty  nave  is  more  impressive  than  that  of  West- 
minster Abbey,  and  its  choir  and  lady-chapel  contain 
some  of  the  finest  wood  carving  in  England.  •  There  are 
stones  in  the  foundation  that  were  laid  as  early  as  the 
appearance  of  Christianity  in  Britain  or  that  were  the 

37 


possible  foundations  of  a  heathen  temple  that  stood  on 
this  spot.  Anselm  was  a  bishop  here  and  so  was  Wolsey, 
afterwards  the  great  Cardinal,  for  his  coat  of  arms  is 
still  seen  carved  on  the  rafters  overhead. 

Walking  through  the  time-worn  cloister  under  the 
gloomy  light,  you  come  to  a  grim,  old  disused  door  in  the 
corner.  It  is  a  massive  plank,  unsmoothed,  with  im- 
mense wrought  hinges  stretching  clear  across  and  a  latch 
of  the  same  material.  It  does  not  require  a  very  bright 
imagination  to  see  again  the  mitred  bishops  followed  by 
a  holy  brotherhood  of  monks  pressing  across  the  passage 
ways  and  through  the  door  to  prayers. 

And  now  we  have  gone  our  rounds  and  as  we  turn 
our  steps  reluctantly  toward  the  door  the  organ  begins 
its  saintly  strains.  The  music  seems  adapted  to  the  fret- 
ted stone  work,  the  gorgeous  windows,  the  sombre  light, 
and  it  gradually  wanders  off  up  under  and  around  the 
stately  arches  and  is  absorbed  in  the  grey  stones.  How 
sadly  do  we  look  and  look  again  on  all  this  splendor  we 
may  never  again  see.  And  lo,  as  we  step  out,  the  steeple 
bells  chime  the  hour  causing  us  to  halt  and  hold  our 
breath  till  their  last  faint  echo  floats  away  over  the 
sleepy  old  town  and  dies  on  the  ear. 

These  chimes  remind  me  now  of  standing  on  the 
public  squares  of  Bruges  on  a  Sabbath  day  when  the 
forty-eight  bells  in  that  noted  bell-tower  fairly  stopped 
me  and  startled  me.  Why,  friends,  it  was  another  gospel 
of  good  tidings,  a  faint  fragment  of  melody  dropped  out 
of  heaven.  My  ear  will  have  lost  its  love  for  the  con- 
cord of  sweet  sounds  when  I  forget  the  bells  of  Durham 
Cathedral  and  of  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  as  I  heard  them 
calling  the  people  to  prayer.  Bells  have  a  music  pecu- 
liarly their  own  and  widely  contrasted  with  other  sounds. 

38 


A  fife  and  drum  awaken  patriotic  valor,  an  organ  settles 
us  into  a  state  of  holy  devotion,  but  a  chime  of  bells 
awakens  holy  memories  of  souls  and  days  long  since  de- 
parted. 

"Those  evening  bells !    Those  evening  bells ! 
How  many  a  tale  their  music  tells, 
Of  youth,  and  home  and  that  sweet  time, 
When  last  I  heard  their  soothing  chime." 

I  am  reminded  of  an  entry  in  Newman's  journal : 
"Sunday  evening  bells  pealing.  The  pleasure  of  hearing 
them.  It  leads  the  mind  to  a  longing  after  something, 
I  know  not  what.  It  does  not  bring  past  years  to  remem- 
brance; it  does  not  bring  anything.  What  does  it  do? 
We  have  a  kind  of  longing  after  something  dear  to  us, 
and  well-known  to  us — very  soothing.  Such  is  my  feel- 
ing at  this  minute  as  I  hear  them." 

Enough  of  the  old  town — the  cathedral,  the  organ, 
the  bells — the  noise  of  modern  life  awakens  us  from  our 
reveries  and  it  fills  us  with  a  feeling  of  disgust.  With  a 
conceit  that  has  become  the  second  nature  of  our  country 
we  stigmatize  with  the  name  "dark  ages"  that  period  in 
which  the  cathedral,  the  organ,  the  chimes,  and  other 
outward  symbols  of  devotion  had  their  birth.  Alas  that 
it  is  our  high  ambition  to  be  slavishly  devoted  to  work 
and  to  that  which  comes  of  its  wealth  and  to  be  willing  to 
live  the  slavish  imitators  in  wood  work  and  stone  work, 
yes  and  even  in  dress,  of  those  whom  we  look  down  upon 
as  beneath  us  in  culture  and  civilization! 

Our  last  day  of  sight-seeing  was  a  visit  to  two 
baronial  castles,  Chatsworth  House  and  Haddon  Hall. 
Both  are  in  Derbyshire  in  Northern  Central  England,  in 
the  quiet  valleys  of  two  adjoining  streams,  the  Derwent 
and  the  Wye.  Chatsworth,  the  residence  for  generations 


of  the  Dukes  of  Devonshire,  and  the  Earls  of  Cavendish, 
is  an  immense  building  consisting  of  a  series  of  lordly 
palaces  that  have  been  in  building  from  the  days  of 
Charles  I.  to  the  present  in  styles  to  match  the  periods. 
Haddon  Hall,  a  castle  and  palace  of  the  Fifteenth  Century, 
has  not  been  trodden,  save  by  the  foot  of  the  pilgrim,  for 
two  hundred  years  and  is  become  a  lordly  ruin.  It  is 
owned  by  the  Duke  of  Rutland  who  is  going  to  allow  it 
to  remain  as  long  as  it  will — a  specimen  of  a  castle  of  the 
middle  ages. 

After  a  beautiful  ride  from  Rugby  through  Derby 
and  Leicester,  we  came  in  the  early  afternoon  into  Der- 
byshire. This  is  a  sudden  transition,  for  through  Wind- 
sor, Oxford,  Stratford,  and  Warwick  the  country  very 
generally  spreads  out  before  you  an  open  prospect  on  all 
sides  and  usually  but  little  wooded.  But  now  at  Amber- 
gate  and  Matlock  bold  hills  appear.  Abrupt  hills,  deep 
gorges  with  the  lazy  moving  Derwent  silent,  slow,  and 
black,  or  tumbling  headlong  over  its  rocky  bed.  We  stop 
at  Rowsley  Station  and  take  a  cab  for  Chatsworth,  our 
road  falling  slowly  down  into  a  narrow  valley  then  rising 
up  again  upon  and  around  a  gentle  hill  slope.  Passing 
on  between  hedge  rows  fairly  white  with  dust,  we 
startle  from  its  slumber  a  little  nodding  hamlet  with  the 
usual  inns  and  church  and  then,  turning  suddenly  to  the 
left,  we  cross  the  Derwent  by  a  stone  bridge,  to  find  our- 
selves in  Chatsworth  Park.  Our  road  now,  for  a  mile 
or  more,  will  be  a  perfect  bow  along  a  hill  that  slopes  per- 
haps thirty  degrees  until  we  enter  at  the  other  end  of 
the  bow  by  a  bridge  over  the  Derwent  upon  Chatsworth 
lawns.  To  this  bow  the  Derwent  forms  a  loose  cord  and 
streams  so  lazily,  this  warm  golden  afternoon,  as  to  re- 
flect the  stately  mansion  and  the  hills  in  the  rear, — these 

40 


latter  lying  outside  the  bow  that  I  just  spoke  of.  We  are 
ascending  the  slope,  at  our  right  the  river  flowing  with 
reluctance,  as  it  were,  through  this  the  loveliest  park  per- 
haps in  England,  trees  glassing  and  dipping  their 
branches  in  the  stream,  cows  browsing  beside  or  stand- 
ing reflected  in  it,  grouse  in  the  meadows  and  deer  un- 
der many  of  the  trees.  Passing  slowly  up  to  the  top- 
most part  of  the  bow  and  under  the  shades  of  the  noble 
trees,  many  of  which  were  planted  by  royal  hands,  we 
now  see  down  yonder  across  the  Derwent,  set  amid  lawns 
and  gardens  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  acres  in  extent, 
the  Palace  of  the  Peak,  Chatsworth  House. 

Whence  comes  these  lordly  gardens,  this  park  of 
more  than  two  thousand  acres,  the  whole  estate  of  more 
than  eighty  thousand  acres?  Largely  through  the  sev- 
eral marriages  of  Elizabeth  of  Hardwick,  or  Bess  of 
Hardwick,  who  lived  three  hundred  years  ago.  The 
combined  estates  of  her  several  husbands  produced  this 
estate,  six  times  as  large  in  extent  as  the  taxable  land  of 
the  town  where  I  live. 

You  see  the  somewhat  abrupt  and  wooded  hill  that 
passes  along  back  of  the  house  and  grounds.  Do  you 
descry  yonder  at  its  northern  extremity  more  than  a  mile 
off,  a  stone  tower?  Mary  Queen  of  Scotts  was  kept  a 
prisoner  at  Chatsworth  several  times  during  thirteen 
years  and  was  allowed  two  privileges  only,  and  one  was 
to  witness  from  the  tower  the  sport  of  hare  and  hounds 
on  the  hill  slopes  below  and  around  her. 

Not  then,  however,  did  this  charming  scene  lie  at  the 
foot  of  the  hills.  The  wooded  heights  frowned  down 
upon  her;  the  now  clipped  and  velvety  lawns  were  then 
unkempt  meadows  and  scraggley  fields, — desolate  phases 
of  nature  that  made  her  soul  more  desolate  perhaps,  the 

41 


more  so  as  soldiers  paced  up  and  down  the  visible  marks 
of  her  assured  captivity.     It  was  possibly  these  scenes 
that  gave  birth  to  Mary's  famous  Latin  Hymn 
"Oh  Domine  deus,  speravi  in  te: 

Oh  care  mi  Jesu,  nunc  libera  me: 

In  dura  catena,  in  misera  poena 

Desidero  te. 

Languendo,  gemendo  et  genuflectendo, 

Adoro,  imploro  ut  liberes  me!" 

I  have  scarce  time  to  take  you  across  this  stately 
bridge  and  within  the  walls  of  this  ducal  mansion,  or 
even  to  tell  you  what  is  there  of  splendor  and  beauty ;  the 
frescoed  halls  and  ceilings,  the  wood  carving  in  the 
chapel  by  Gibbons,  the  inlaid  oak  floors,  state  apartments 
where  kings  and  queens  have  slept,  and  above  all  that 
restful  series  of  views  one  gets  from  the  windows.  You 
look  out  upon  lawns,  level  as  a  table,  sleek  as  velvet. 
I  am  earthly  enough  to  think  that  I  should  be  satisfied 
if  God  gave  me  no  more  heaven  than  that  which  can  be 
seen  from  the  windows  of  Chatsworth  or  of  Warwick 
Castle.  What  are  architecture,  painting,  antiquities,  the 
galleries  of  the  Louvre,  Versailles,  Antwerp,  Amsterdam 
with  their  miles  of  pictures  to  the  effects  that  nature  can 
produce,  with  a  little  of  man's  assistance?  These  peeps 
from  the  windows  at  Warwick  Castle — at  Avon  flowing 
by  at  the  base  of  the  walls,  at  the  ivy-covered  bridge 
spanning  it,  at  the  endless  green  stretch  of  meadow  be- 
yond with  cattle  feeding  or  resting  under  the  broad 
shade,  at  the  hoary  cedars  stretching  out  horizontally 
their  vigorous  piney  arms  and  flourishing  as  when  the 
crusading  Warwick  transplanted  them  from  Lebanon 
seven  hundred  years  ago, — what  does  one  need  of  imagi- 
native productions  when  the  real  can  be  worked  up  into 
such  celestial  effects? 


But  our  walk  through  the  almost  endless  corridors 
of  Chatsworth  is  done.  We  are  left  by  our  guides  at  the 
rear  of  the  house  and,  neglecting  the  green-house  and  the 
stable,  make  our  way  over  the  parapet  into  the  front  yard 
and  for  a  moment  lie  down  upon  the  grass  under  the 
trees,  basking  in  the  slanting  rays  of  the  afternoon  sun, 
lazy  as  the  historic  little  stream  that  is  moving  by  at  our 
feet.  Just  beyond  is  Edensor,  the  little  village  in  the 
park  in  whose  grave-yard  the  Earls  of  Cavendish,  Dukes 
of  Devonshire  lie  buried,  among  them  the  new-made 
grave  of  Frederick,  murdered  in  Ireland  the  preceding 
May.  Here  is  the  epitaph:  "He  went  out  as  Chief 
Secretary  to  Ireland,  full  of  love  to  that  country,  full  of 
hope  for  her  future,  full  of  capacity  to  render  her  service, 
and  was  murdered  in  the  Phoenix  Park  in  Dublin,  within 
twelve  hours  of  his  arrival,  May  6,  1882." 

But  time  presses  and  we  must  hurry  to  our  carriage. 
The  sun  is  more  than  half  way  toward  his  setting. 
Crowds  of  visitors  are  scattered  everywhere,  through  the 
park  and  on  the  lawns  and  by  the  stream.  Reluctantly 
we  wind  our  way  along  the  bow  by  which  we  came,  look- 
ing back  again  and  again  at  the  glories  of  the  stately 
palace.  Meanwhile  the  cascade  on  the  hill-slope  back  of 
the  house  has  been  set  in  motion  and  a  stream  of  water 
is  now  pouring  step  by  step  down  the  hill  and  causing 
the  whole  valley  to  re-echo.  The  great  fountain  also, 
standing  in  the  middle  of  the  lawn  and  built  originally  to 
adorn  a  visit  of  the  Emperor  of  Russia,  is  sending  up  its 
mighty  jet  two  hundred  feet  into  the  air,  enveloping  the 
mansion  in  a  gorgeous  rainbow. 

With  a  conscious  heart-ache  we  find  ourselves  ever 
and  again  looking  back  and  saying,  "good  bye  Chats- 
worth  !"  as  we  make  our  way  to  another  valley  only  four 

43 


or  five  miles  distant,  watered  by  the  Wye.  Here  is  a 
scene  of  contrasts.  No  glory  of  an  afternoon  sun,  rather 
the  cool  of  evening.  Gradually  night  is  creeping  over 
this  irregular  valley  of  less  than  a  fourth  of  a  mile  in 
width.  Gentle  hills  on  either  side,  wooded  and  from  one 
hundred  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  in  height.  The 
valley  is  a  rough  meadow  and  considerably  inclined.  Cows 
are  coming  home  from  pasture.  The  scene  is  enlivened 
by  no  human  being.  Babbling  Wye  is  hurrying  noisily 
along  as  if  to  escape  the  haunted  old  ruin  yonder  which 
we  shall  soon  approach  by  a  bridge  over  the  little  stream. 
Yon  venerable  ruin,  ages  since  covered  with  moss  and 
lichens,  wild  flowers  and  ivy,  looks  now  as  though  it  were 
part  of  all  that  God  has  made  here  and  around  us.  It 
is  attractive  not  to  the  holiday  crowd  but  only  to  the  oc- 
casional pilgrim  of  pencil  or  brush.  You  see  the  ruin 
lengthwise  up  the  hill;  it  does  not  lie  in  lazy  grandeur, 
like  Chats  worth,  along  the  greensward  at  its  feet. 
Lawns,  fountains,  parterres,  gaily  dressed  crowds — 
where  are  they  all?  They  would  be  intruders  here. 
Man  departed  from  these  hills  hundreds  of  years  ago, 
therefore  let  Nature  carry  on  her  work.  She  will  creep 
over  the  ruins  which  the  hand  of  man  or  the  tooth  of 
time  have  made  and  with  ivy  and  moss  will  array  them 
in  garments  fit  for  old  age  and  burial.  Thus  it  is  at 
Kenilworth  where  the  ivy  has  grown  to  conceal  the  de- 
fects of  what  was  once  so  perfect,  where  the  sod  is  now 
the  tapestry  of  the  elegant  dining  hall  in  which  Leicester 
feasted  Queen  Elizabeth;  thus  also  is  it  at  St.  Cloud — 
and  of  all  European  ruins  that  is  perhaps  the  most  touch- 
ing and  impressive.  There,  only  fourteen  years  ago 
(1870)  Napoleon  and  Eugenie  were  the  observed  of  all 
observers — the  brilliant  centre  of  the  gaiety  of  Paris  and 


44 


Europe.  But  the  Germans  came  on  Paris ;  the  Commune 
fired  St.  Cloud;  Napoleon  was  left  without  an  Empire, 
an  exile.  Soon  the  exiled  queen  was  a  widow  and  but 
a  little  later  was  bereft  of  her  only  child.  But  the  revo- 
lution at  St.  Cloud  does  not  interrupt  the  miracle  of  na- 
ture. Wild  flowers  and  moss  grow  already  in  the  win- 
do  wless  casements  and  on  the  tops  of  the  roofless  apart- 
ments, and  pillars  of  marble  and  porphyry  are  assuming 
that  dress  in  which  nature  enwraps  everything  that  is 
doomed  to  forgetfulness.  The  walls  still  stretch  away 
to  limited  distances  under  trees  that  still  show  the  signs 
of  artistic  trimming.  Flowers  grow  still  in  the  beds,  but 
only  as  nature  grows  them.  Gold  fish  sport  in  the  foun- 
tains, but  alas  for  the  human  occupants  who  planned  all 
this  magnificence,  they  are  dead  or  dead  to  it. 

But  we  are  entering  the  old  deserted  hall  on  the 
Wye.  We  go  up  the  hill  and  under  the  arched  entrance. 
The  iron  gates  are  flung  open.  No  warden,  looking 
through  the  little  peephole  in  the  wall,  stops  to  take  our 
measure  before  admitting  us.  Many  a  gay  company  of 
mail-clad  warriors  has  gone  hence  to  the  hunt  or  the 
fight,  with  hawk  and  hound  and  ladies  gay;  many  a  one 
has  been  brought  back  under  the  archway  flecked  with 
blood,  maimed  or  dead.  With  such  thoughts  do  we  pass 
through  the  gateway  and  stand  in  the  lower  of  the  two 
paved  courts.  The  buildings  on  this  side  are  the  rooms 
where  the  Lord  and  Lady  lived;  on  the  next  side  were 
the  servants  apartments;  there  was  the  chapel;  yonder 
were  the  dining  hall  and  kitchen. 

Busy  times  here  two  hundred  and  three  hundred 
and  four  hundred  years  ago.  See  how  the  stone  thres- 
holds are  worn  to  a  curve,  how  the  floors  are  worn  and 
broken,  how  the  great  oak  blocks  in  the  kitchen  have 


45 


been  hewn  down  under  the  butcher's  cleaver,  and  the 
mixing  bowls  and  kneading  boards  under  the  cook's 
labors.  How  antiquated  the  old  dais  in  the  hall  where 
my  Lord  and  Lady  used  to  sit,  and  the  minstrel  gallery 
opposite  where,  as  the  player  touched  the  harp,  poetry 
flowed  from  the  soul  extempore,  not  always  with  studied 
grace  yet  seldom  without  poetic  fire.  Bluff  King  Hal  has 
walked  this  floor  in  merry  dance.  Arthur,  his  elder 
brother  and  husband  of  Catherine  of  Aragon,  was  edu- 
cated here  in  part  under  the  Duke  of  Vernon. 

The  place  is  fitted  for  romance.  Dorothy  de  Ver- 
non, daughter  of  the  Lord  of  Haddon,  fell  in  love  with 
John  Manners,  son  of  the  Duke  of  Rutland  (of  course 
against  her  parents'  will,  else  why  go  on  with  the  story?). 
Young  Manners  used  often  to  visit  the  terraces  and  the 
woods  back  of  the  hall,  disguised  as  a  hunter;  and  in 
that  way  young  Dorothy  kept  her  affection  warm.  One 
night  her  older  sister  was  to  be  married  to  the  Earl  of 
Derby  and  when  the  festivities  were  well  in  progress 
Dorothy  slipped  out  by  a  side  door  and  "flew  to  her  lov- 
er's arms."  Next  day  they  were  married  in  Leicester- 
shire. Of  course  the  old  folks  were  reconciled  and, 
what  is  more,  as  the  old  Baron  de  Vernon  had  no  heir  to 
succeed  him,  pretty  Dorothy  transferred  the  estates  from 
the  house  of  Vernon  to  the  house  of  Rutland.  But  we 
must  cut  these  reflections  short  for  in  half  an  hour  our 
train  will  be  at  Rowsley  and  the  promptness  and  despatch 
of  business  are  not  in  keeping  with  reveries  and  poetry. 

Well,  we  have  seen  two  magnificent  estates.  As 
Americans,  we  can  but  admire  the  power  that  wealth  and 
prestige  have  to  put  the  world  off  at  such  a  respectful 
distance;  to  monopolize  the  broad  stretches  of  hill,  val- 
ley, and  streams  crowning  them  with  tasteful  objects  and 


throwing  over  them  a  perpetual  Sabbath  of  quiet  or  holi- 
day of  mirth. 

But,  let  us  ask  God  to  forgive  us,  for  in  twenty  min- 
utes we  shall  see  a  contrast  that  will  make  the  heart 
ache.  From  Ambergate  toward  Sheffield  the  express 
train  will,  in  half  an  hour,  transform  this  heaven  into  a 
hell;  green  fields  into  heaps  of  ashes;  skies  of  unsullied 
loveliness  into  an  eclipse  of  dirt  and  smoke  that  will  be 
lifted  only  when  the  coal-beds  and  iron  mines  of  the 
world  are  consumed.  Here  fires  spring  from  the  earth, 
not  flowers.  Here  human  creatures  wear  the  pinched 
pale  faces  of  want  and  toil.  Here  as  many  dwellings 
and  people  as  possible  seem  to  come  crowding  together 
by  the  reversal  of  all  human  laws.  This  is  the  great 
coaling  region,  the  centre  for  steel  and  iron  manufacture, 
— Sheffield  and  Barnsley.  Oh,  if  there  be  a  place  where 
the  gloom,  the  filth,  the  squalor,  the  hard-work,  the  igno- 
rance, and  the  brutality  of  England  centre  it  must  be 
this  Pandemonium  through  which  we  are  now  passing 
in  the  lurid  dusk  of  evening.  Dickens  pictured  this  re- 
gion years  ago  in  Old  Curiosity  Shop,  in  the  wanderings 
of  the  Old  Man  and  Little  Nell.  Mrs.  Burnett  has 
given  it  to  us  latterly  in  her  novel,  That  Lass  o'  Lowries. 
There  is  something  wrong,  depend  upon  it,  in  the  social 
conditions  and  training  of  a  people  that  can  be  content 
to  allow  such  contrasts  in  such  close  proximity. 
************** 

If  there  be  any  place  in  this  world  where  thoughts 
crowd  thick  and  fast,  where  a  man  listens  for  the  slight- 
est reminiscences  and  thoughts  that  come  from  mind 
and  soul,  it  is  in  that  half  mile  of  street  between  Tra- 
falgar Square  and  Westminster.  There  never  can  have 
been  a  street  on  earth  along  which  have  passed  so  many 

47 


human  interests  and  for  so  long.  For  more  than  a 
thousand  years  successively  have  the  national  legislature 
and  sanctuary  of  England  been  here.  Rome  has  not  the 
eternity  of  London.  A  thousand  years  and  Rome  was 
in  ruins.  A  thousand  years  and  London  shines  with  in- 
creasing lustre,  her  Parliament  holding  sway  over  spaces 
ten-fold  greater  than  those  of  imperial  Rome  and  over  a 
complexity  of  interests  that  would  have  crazed  a  Caesar. 

An  Englishman's  best  inspirations  are  received  and 
given  back  at  Westminster.  Right  there,  at  present,  is 
the  centre  of  the  world,  for  there  are  the  Houses  of  Par- 
liament and  the  Abbey.  As  one  looks  on  these  two 
centres  of  illustrious  legislation  and  burial,  (for  they  are 
side  by  side),  he  naturally  asks  what  there  is  common  to 
two  places  so  widely  contrasted.  For  repeated  visits  to 
the  one  make  him  feel  that  it  is  inseparable  from  the 
other.  The  busy  Parliament  crowds  on  your  thought 
while  you  are  in  the  Abbey;  sitting  amid  the  memorials 
of  Pitt,  Fox,  Canning,  and  Peel,  your  thoughts  are  car- 
ried to  the  legislative  halls  across  the  street  in  which 
their  laurels  were  won.  Or  if  you  look  down  from  the 
galleries  of  Parliament  upon  the  grey  heads  of  Gladstone, 
Bright,  Grey,  and  Argyll,  you  know  that  in  a  few  years 
hence  the  sacred  dust  of  these  men  will  rest  in  the  Abbey 
yonder  or  that,  at  least,  some  memorial  of  them  will  find 
place  amid  other  of  the  noble  departed. 

What  are  the  two  poles  of  contrast  that  meet  to- 
gether so  as  to  thrill  us  with  the  greatness  of  England 
and  her  sons?  It  is  the  solid  devotion  to  duty  that  she 
demands  of  the  living  and  the  sacred  character  that  at- 
taches to  the  noble  dead.  What  enobles  every  little  act 
of  the  living,  what  makes  them  illustrious  when  dead? 
I  am  sure  you  will  not  anticipate  my  answer. 

48 


Meeting  issues  has  made  England  and  Englishmen 
great.  Mind  I  did  not  say  meeting  great  issues,  but 
issues  whether  great  or  small. 

Neither  England  nor  Englishmen  have  had  always 
spotless  records.  She  has  had  her  share  of  weaknesses. 
Not  to  go  farther  back  than  the  present  sovereign,  there 
have  been  things  that  cause  us  to  blush  for  her  con- 
scienceless policy,  her  mercenary  hardness.  The  war 
that  forced  opium  on  China,  the  action  that  tried  to  dic- 
tate a  policy  to  Afghanistan,  that  sympathized  with  and 
lent  money  aid  to  the  South  during  our  late  war.  It  was 
the  same  conscienceless  policy  that  lost  the  thirteen  col- 
onies, and  thus  unwittingly  prepared  the  way  for  a  nation 
in  which  might  be  developed  those  principles  of  liberty 
and  religion  that  could  not  find  room  enough  in  the  Old 
World. 

Do  not  forget,  however,  that  England  has  manfully 
redressed  many  of  these  injuries,  or  has  protested,  as  a 
people,  against  the  short-sighted,  mercenary  acts  of  her 
men  in  power.  We  need  to  be  reminded  by  a  short  table 
of  contents  only  that,  for  long  generations,  grand,  soul- 
enobling  influences  have  issued  out  of  this  same  palace 
yard  at  Westminster.  Here  what  has  England  not 
done,  even  for  you  and  me? 

In  rearing  a  vigorous  yeomanry  and  soldiery,  in  re- 
taining Catholicism  while  rejecting  popery,  in  rejecting 
Catholicism  when  it  came  to  trample  with  rough  shoes  on 
truth  and  liberty,  in  translating  the  Bible,  in  weakening 
the  power  of  Spain  and  Austria,  and  lending  support  to 
the  Protestants  of  Holland  and  Germany,  in  awakening 
the  spirit  of  adventure  and  discovery,  in  spreading  colonies 
that  have  awakened  commerce  and  spread  the  borders  of 
civilization,  in  fighting  at  home  and  abroad  bloody  battles 


10 


for  human  right — these  are  some  of  the  things  England 
had  done  before  the  United  States  came  into  being. 

And  let  me  still  keep  before  you  that  England's 
greatness  lies  in  the  constant  meeting  and  settlement  of 
such  issues.  And  in  accordance  with  her  system  these 
issues  are  met  in  the  contrasted  legislative  acts  of  her  two 
great  parties.  The  issues  are  decided  by  the  policy  of 
this,  for  the  present,  ruling  party  and  mind.  This  may 
be  a  mind  influenced  by  a  stern  and  rigid  desire  for 
truth,  which  anticipates  public  need  and  moulds  public 
sentiment,  as  for  instance  Mr.  Gladstone's ;  or  it  may  be 
the  dashing  policy  of  a  Disraeli — "anything  to  aggrandize 
England."  But  mark  you  it  is  the  contrasted  battle  that 
duty  wages  with  difficulty,  that  goodness  wars  with 
error,  with  which  promptness  and  fidelity  lay  hold  of 
and  overcome  work  that  waits  to  be  done,  that  renders 
men  great  the  world  over ;  the  Dresden  Madonna,  the 
Parthenon,  the  Paradise  Lost,  the  labors  of  Wesley  and 
Howard,  the  reforms  of  1837  are,  each  and  all,  issues  of 
beauty,  truth,  or  goodness  of  which  men  shall  reap  the 
benefit  as  long  as  a  vestige  of  them  remain. 

And  it  is  in  the  making  of  these  contrasts  and 
issues  that  all  duty  lies,  out  of  them  all  greatness  springs. 
It  does  not  make  much  difference  whether  the  scene  of 
the  issue  be  in  London  or  Wilbraham,  in  Rome,  or  any- 
where else,  in  the  hall  of  legislation  or  the  peasant's  cot- 
tage. If  it  be  good,  doubt  not  its  memorial  is  assured. 
"Honor  and  Shame  from  no  condition  rise.  Act  well 
your  part,  there  all  the  honor  lies."  There  is  much  of 
bitterness,  of  malignment,  of  misconstruction,  attendant 
upon  a  life  that  will  devote  itself  to  truth  and  right,  and 
it  is  seldom,  until  after  death,  that  it  reaps  its  due  reward 
of  honor  and  appreciation.  Then  of  a  sudden  lips  that 

50 


before  had  cursed  break  forth  in  eulogy.  Charity  then 
covers  defects  and  buries  resentments.  Political  oppo- 
sition smirches  the  character  of  its  opponents  nowhere 
more  bitterly  and  keenly  than  in  England.  But  the  silent 
spirit  of  Westminster  Abbey  seems  to  rest  just  a  little 
above  the  same  hoary  heads  to  crown  them  in  a  moment 
with  deathless  and  spotless  glory.  So  Pitt  sank  to  his 
unsullied  rest,  dying  suddenly  there  amid  the  very  clamor 
of  the  opposing  house ;  so  Disraeli  passed  suddenly  to  his 
rest. 

No  prophet  now  living  can  stand  within  St.  Steph- 
en's gateway,  the  entrance  to  the  House  of  Parliament, 
and  cast  England's  horoscope.  What  shall  be  done  with 
Ireland?  Will  England  long  maintain  her  Indian 
supremacy?  Shall  Canada  become  independent?  Who 
shall  control  the  Congo,  Suez,  and  Panama?  What 
changes  are  to  take  place  in  the  regency?  Will  the 
House  of  Lords  be  abolished?  Are  the  titled  land  own- 
ers to  be  robbed  of  their  nobility  and  land  monopoly? 
These  are  some  of  the  issues  England  has  to  meet.  In 
some  of  the  questions  men  are  yet  to  find  the  materials 
for  their  greatness. 

But  here  also,  within  this  venerable  abbey,  unworthy 
men  are  perpetuated  in  memorials  gaudy  and  hollow  as 
their  own  vile  nothingness,  while  others  again,  worthy 
in  all  respects,  are  left  forgotten.  Here  are  no  reminders 
of  Philip  Sidney,  Christopher  Marlowe,  Robert  Burns, 
Walter  Scott,  Coleridge,  Keats,  and  Shelley.  Many  of 
the  varied  monuments  too  have  not  the  holy  dust  near 
by  to  correspond  to  them.  Shakespeare's  body  lies  un- 
der the  old  church  by  the  flowing  Avon  in  Stratford, 
Milton  is  buried  at  St.  Giles  in  the  city,  Goldsmith  in 


51 


the  Temple,  Gray  in  the  seclusion  of  the  country  church- 
yard at  Stoke  Poges  near  Windsor. 

Still,  one  may  feel  that  it  is  the  privilege  of  a  life- 
time to  stand  above  the  dust  of  Chaucer,  whose  tomb 
seems  like  another  Mecca  in  the  signs  of  the  innumer- 
able feet  that  have  trodden  it;  to  be  above  the  dust  of 
"rare  Ben  Jonson"  to  feel  the  skepticism  of  our  day 
rebuked  in  the  noble  words  inscribed  above  the  poet 
Spenser:  "Here  lies,  expecting  the  second  coming  of 
our  Savior  Christ  Jesus,  the  body  of  Edmund  Spenser, 
the  prince  of  poets  in  his  time,  whose  divine  spirit  needs 
no  other  witness  than  the  works  he  left  behind  him." 

Standing  there  amid  these  monuments  of  mingled 
excellence  you  ask  yourself,  in  pain  perhaps :  And  is  it 
then  true  that  after  their  noblest  services,  their  highest, 
purest  flights  of  fancy,  legislators,  reformers,  and  poets 
may  be  left  unremembered  ?  It  may  seem  so.  But  the 
man  who  desires  to  do  noble  deeds  should  learn  here 
that  the  real  monuments  of  the  great  dead  are  not  alone 
upon  the  walls  and  floors  of  this  or  any  such  imposing 
mausoleum.  The  good  and  great  are  buried  in  appre- 
ciative hearts,  and  hence  bloom  forth,  as  ages  wear  away, 
flowers  of  undying  affection.  For  today  as  when  Peri- 
cles uttered  it  over  the  Athenian  dead,  more  than  two 
thousand  years  ago,  this  sentiment  is  true,  that  "the 
whole  earth  is  the  sepulchre  of  illustrious  men,  and  not 
only  is  their  work  inscribed  on  columns  in  their  own 
land  but  dwells  rather  with  every  one  in  unwritten  mem- 
orials of  the  heart." 

Forget  not  this  then,  oh,  my  soul,  as  thou  leavest 
these  lonely  cloisters,  as  thou  walkest,  perhaps  for  the 
last  time,  from  out  the  glory  of  these  holy  windows,  from 


under  the  sombre  protection  of  stately  groined  arches 
crumbling  under  the  tooth  of  time. 


Our  visit  to  the  Old  World  is  ended,  our  ship  well 
out  to  sea.  The  quiet  loneliness  of  Scotch  and  English 
lakes,  the  mountain  scenery  of  Switzerland  and  the  even, 
vine-clad  fields  of  sunny  France  blend,  in  our  memory, 
with  cathedrals,  castles  and  galleries — all  together  form- 
ing an  impression  of  a  vaguely  remembered,  heavenly 
dream.  The  land  has  sunk  from  sight,  does  not  the 
heart  sink  also?  Holy  Head  Mount  is  passed  at  a  great- 
er distance  and  partly  enveloped  in  a  drizzle  of  rain  and 
fog,  not  glorious  now  as  on  that  afternoon  in  early  sum- 
mer. The  hills  of  Queenstown  do  not  wear  any  more 
that  unspeakable  loveliness  that  they  present  to  the  eye 
which  for  days  has  only  waters,  waters  and  to  which 
land  becomes  a  delicacy  absolutely  unspeakable. 

We  throw  ourselves  again  upon  the  mercy  of  the 
waters  with  head  toward  our  home  land.  A  land  it  is 
as  yet  devoid  of  legend  and  romance,  never  destined  per- 
haps to  furnish  the  traveller  such  tales  as  linger  about 
the  old  castles  that  we  are  leaving  behind  us.  A  land  it 
is  with  few  historic  battlefields,  but  it  is  a  land,  thank 
God,  with  no  incubus  upon  it  of  old  time  customs  and 
class  distinctions.  Possessing  the  best  results  of  past 
European  struggles  for  liberty  and  religion,  explored  and 
settled  under  the.  impulse  and  influence  of  religion,  its 
civil  and  religious  institutions  grounded  on  the  fear  of 
Almighty  God, — Truly  of  such  a  land  may  we  well  be 
proud ! 

And  at  last  one  night  we  anchor  off  that  goodly 
shore,  next  morning  we  see  to  right  and  left  that  land 


which,  when  we  had  left  it  a  few  weeks  before,  had 
glowed  with  a  furnace  heat.  But  how  seems  it  now  ?  Is 
this  a  paradise  that  we  have  come  upon?  The  grass  is 
golden  under  the  summer  sun,  the  trees  are  waving  with 
grace  and  beauty, — it  is  like  the  view  from  Norwich 
Castle  and  Chatsworth  meadows.  Glorious  land ! 
Home! 

But  then  comes  the  larger  thought:  the  old  world 
is  gone,  the  ocean  crossed,  the  ship  left,  and  now  the 
small  unremembered  place  and  insignificant  round  of 
duty.  Forget  not  this  and  say  it  often :  "Meet  thou  thy 
issues  and  leave  with  God  and  the  good  thy  record." 
Hands  across  the  sea,  your  own  beloved  land — there  is  a 
larger  land  yet,  broader,  ideal,  farspread  as  humanity 
itself : 

"Where  is  the  true  man's  fatherland? 


Where'er  a  human  spirit  strives 
After  a  life  more  true  and  fair, 
There  is  the  true  man's  fatherland." 

Written  in  May,  1883,  an&   rewritten   in    its   present 
form  December,  1884. 


II.  FANNY  BURNEY  AND  HER  TIMES 

The  Eighteenth  Century,  so  far  as  it  concerns  the 
literary  history  of  England,  is  restful  and  instructive ;  its 
real  characters  are  often  quite  fictitious,  and  its  fictions 
very  real.  It  is  the  period  of  Samuel  Johnson,  Squire 
Western,  Robinson  Crusoe,  Pope,  Roger  de  Coverley, 
Goldsmith,  Dr.  Primrose,  Addison,  and  many  others.  Of 
all  the  spots  in  literary  history  that  precede  our  own 
bustling  times  it  is  perhaps  the  most  delightful.  Ours 

54 


is  a  hustling,  boastful,  thankless,  forgetful,  conceited 
period.  Let  us  ramble  away  from  it  a  little  while.  Ma- 
terial forces  have  been  revealed  and  human  forces  are 
being  organized  in  our  day.  Our  times  have  extended 
men's  horizons  too  far;  have  taught  us  to  produce  too 
many  things  and  too  rapidly;  have  taught  us  to  travel 
too  fast  and  hear  too  far;  have  started  problems,  indus- 
trial, social,  religious, — exhilarating  all  this,  no  doubt,  but 
necessitating  readjustments  such  as  we  have  not  con- 
ceived and  generating  evils  such  as  the  pessimistic  have 
not  presaged.  With  our  period  began  a  ''Novus  ordo 
Saeclorum,"  that  is  not  the  immediate  forerunner  of  the 
millenium.  It  is  not  the  things  made  possible  by  steam 
and  electricity,  but  the  larger  possibilities  revealed  in 
man. 

Several  men  of  our  day  equal  whole  regiments. 
The  average  man  has  fallen  in  value.  The  individu- 
ality is  gone  from  him.  Let  us  away  then  with  these 
times. 

"With  slower  pen  men  used  to  write 

Of  old  when  letters  were  'polite;' 
In  Anna's  or  in  George's  days 
They  could  afford  to  turn  a  phrase 

Or  trim  a  straggling  theme  aright. 

"They  knew  not  steam;  electric  light 
Not  yet  had  dazed  their  calmer  sight; 
They  meted  out  both  blame  and  praise 
With  slower  pen." 

"Too  swiftly  now  the  hours  take  flight, 
What's  read  at  noon  is  dead  at  night; 
Scant  space  have  we  for  Art's  delays 
Whose  breathless  thought  so  briefly  stays; 
We  may  not  work — ah,  would  we  might! 

With   slower  pen."  —Dobson. 


55 


In  this  earlier  time  there  prevailed  a  more  marked 
individuality  in  men,  an  all-roundness  which  our  time  is 
fast  levelling  and  obliterating.  There  was  a  distinctive- 
ness  in  architecture,  a  variety  and  brilliancy  in  dress, 
while  in  our  days  we  have  sunk  to  a  uniformity  in  color 
and  cut.  Even  poor  priests  and  pedagogues  were  per- 
sonalities then.  How  different  from  that  century  of  Lili- 
put  is  this  of  Brobdingnag.  Men  now  combine  their  in- 
terests. We  have  trusts  in  trade,  machinery  in  politics,  in- 
stitutional churches.  Then  it  was  the  little  parish 
church,  the  six-by-nine  trader's  shop,  the  home,  the  inn, 
the  club ;  it  was  the  time  of  tea,  comfort,  domesticity ;  of 
letters,  essays,  gossips,  and,  as  Thackeray  says,  "of 
small-beer  chronicles  without  end." 

The  characters,  real  or  fictitious,  are  strikingly  in- 
dividual. It  may  be  the  good  old  king,  or  his  still  bet- 
ter queen.  It  may  be  Boswell,  the  prince  of  biograph- 
ers, whom  fools  have  called  a  fool.  It  may  be  Squire 
Western  whose  appearance  makes  decent  people  stop  up 
their  ears. 

In  the  diaries  of  Fanny  Burney  you  may  peep  behind 
the  curtains  of  the  royal  household.  Exactly  at  the  same 
hour  the  good  king  kisses  his  daughters  good  night. 
With  equal  regularity  the  royal  night-cap  is  put  on. 
Their  majesties  walk  at  exactly  the  same  hour  on  Wind- 
sor terrace  and  look  across  that  charming  bit  of  country 
— the  Thames  at  their  feet,  Eton  campus  on  its  farther 
bank,  "the  distant  spires  and  antique  towers"  a  little 
further  off,  and  Stoke  Poges  only  three  or  four  miles 
away. 

For  another  bit  of  individuality,  read  The  Spectator, 
stealing  upon  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  at  church.  Note 
his  shrewd  devotion,  his  homely  authority.  Or  go  to  his 

56 


home  and  enjoy  the  quaint  relationship  between  him  and 
his  chaplain.  Sir  Roger  is  a  good  deal  more  real  than 
Pope  or  Swift,  or  many  other  men  who  moved  in  clothes. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  most  individualistic  pictures  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century  is  at  Olney.  One  edition  of 
Cowper  has  a  charming  vignette,  not  more  than  one  and 
one  half  by  two  inches, — a  real  Eighteenth  Century  touch, 
It  embraces  a  full  mile  sweep  of  the  quiet  Ouse,  with 
here  and  there  a  little  island  in  the  stream.  On  the  left 
is  a  country  road  leading  over  a  gentle  knoll  which  partly 
concealed  the  village  a  mile  away.  The  church,  how- 
ever, can  be  seen  and,  back  of  it,  the  country  stretching 
indefinitely  away.  There  John  Newton  preached  and 
Cowper  worshipped.  Step  into  the  quiet  parsonage. 
There  is  the  sensitive,  sometimes  partly  demented,  poet ; 
the  trim-ribboned  cap  which  his  cousin,  Lady  Hesketh, 
made  him,  is  on  his  head.  Perhaps  he  is  playing  with 
his  tame  hares;  certainly  he  is  smoking  his  pipe;  per- 
haps he  is  perusing  the  small  installment  of  books  which 
came  from  London  in  the  last  coach;  likeliest  of  all,  he 
is  at  the  open  fireplace,  his  house-keeper,  Mary  Unwin, 
at  his  side,  and  we  hear  his  whisper : 

Mary!  I  want  a  lyre  with  other  strings, 

Such  aid  from  heaven  as  some  have  feign'd  they  drew, 

An  eloquence  scarce  given  to  mortals,  new 

And  undebased  by  praise  of  meaner  things, 

That,  ere  through  age  or  woe  I  shed  my  wings, 

I  may  record  thy  worth  with  honour  due, 

In  verse  as  musical  as  thou  art  true, 

And  that  immortalizes  whom  it  sings. 

But  thou  hast  little  need.     There  is  a  book 

By  seraphs  writ  with  beams  of  heavenly  light, 

On  which  the  eyes  of  God  not  rarely  look, 

A  chronicle  of  actions  just  and  bright; 

57 


There  all  thy  deeds,  my  faithful  Mary,  shine, 

And,  since  thou  own'st  that  praise,  I  spare  thee  mine." 

These  are  two  or  three  of  the  scores  of  pictures  one 
might  draw,  so  characteristic  of  that  simple,  homely  time. 

But,  strange  to  say,  this  is  a  period  that  has  been 
much  talked  against,  owing  perhaps  to  the  upheaval 
across  the  Channel,  owing,  in  part,  also,  to  the  preaching 
of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys  who  called  the  rottenness 
of  that  age  sin  and  its  offenders  sinners.  But  the  cen- 
tury that  gave  birth  to  The  Vicar  of  Wakeiield,  to  the 
Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  to  When  All  Thy  Mer- 
cies and  The  Spacious  Firmament,  that  sent  into  the  world 
"Penelope  Boothly,"  "Innocence,"  and  "The  Neapolitan 
Fisher  Boy," — the  man  who  gave  that  century  a  wholly 
bad  reputation  bears  a  large  burden  of  responsibility. 

We  come  at  the  Eighteenth  Century  easily  through 
Irving  and  Thackeray.  The  Sketch  Book  and  Brace- 
bridge  Hall  are  an  excellent  introduction.  "It  was 
while  the  present  century  was  yet  in  its  teens,"  as  you 
will  recollect,  that  Amelia  Sedley  with  her  dear,  confid- 
ing friend,  Rebecca  Sharp,  left  Miss  Pinkerton's  school, 
to  try  the  realities  of  a  cold  world.  It  was  to  Vauxhall 
gardens  that  Joseph  Sedley  took  Becky  when  he  got  so 
dreadfully  fuddled.  It  was  to  Vauxhall  that  the  con- 
ceited, aimless,  puppy  (his  mother's  blue  blood)  Arthur 
Pendennis  took  the  confiding  little  Fanny  Bolton  and  met 
Costigan,  drunk,  at  the  gate. 

Thackeray's  writings  from  beginning  to  end,  and 
particularly  Esmond  and  Pendennis,  teem  with  references 
to  the  Eighteenth  Century.  Thackeray,  .ki  all  his  sym- 
pathies, lay  the  other  side  of  1801.  Taking  his  liter- 
ary and  artistic  gifts  at  their  proper  estimate,  he  is  a 
compound  of  Johnson,  Addison,  Swift,  Steele,  Hogarth, 

58 


Beich  and  many  others.  Thackeray  has  heart  and  head 
and  sense  and  wit  enough  to  take  in  all  the  features  of 
that  period;  so  much  so  that  there  is  not  a  human  trait, 
nor  a  local  setting  of  any  account  which  he  has  not  pho- 
tographed. 

Let  us  remember  that  we  are,  this  evening,  roaming 
at  large  in  that  earlier  London.  We  are  not  aspiring  to- 
ward literary  criticism.  There  are  to  be  no  comparisons 
between  the  retiring  little  author  of  Evelina  and  her 
more  learned  and  stately  sisters  of  our  later  time. 
There  are  wide  gulfs  between  little  Fanny  Burney  and 
colossi  like  Madame  Sand,  George  Eliot,  or  Mrs.  Hum- 
phrey Ward. 

It  was  the  intention  of  this  paper  to  awaken  an  in- 
terest in  the  period,  in  the  places,  in  the  customs,  in  the 
friends  and  the  family,  and  so,  in  the  personality  and  the 
writings,  of  Fanny  Burney.  You  would  throw  down  the 
novels  Evelina  and  Cecilia  at  once  as  insipid,  if  you  had 
taken  them  up  without  previous  preparation.  It  is  the 
pou  sto  that  we  are  seeking,  or  rather  the  background 
on  which  to  throw  our  little  figure. 

The  London  of  the  last  century  was  in  striking  con- 
trast to  that  of  today.  Set  the  Londoner  of  King 
George's  day  down  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard,  or  at  Tra- 
falgar Square,  and  nearly  every  object  and  about  every 
activity  would  be  new  and  strange  to  him.  The  streets, 
for  instance,  broad,  paved,  clean,  and  well-lighted;  the 
immense  buildings;  the  modes  of  conveyance,  particu- 
larly the  hellish  locomotives  with  their  roar  and  speed 
and  immense  tonnage ;  the  heavy  drays ;  the  tram-cars ; 
the  hansoms,  bicycles,  and  autos, — these  would  astound 
him.  He  would  find  many  commodities  unheard  of  in 
his  time.  He  would  be  impressed  with  the  immense,  yet 

59 


comparatively  noiseless,  crowds.  He  would  see  an  or- 
ganized and  much  enlarged  activity.  He  would  miss 
the  narrow,  winding  streets,  the  picturesque  house-fronts, 
the  latticed  windows,  the  small-windowpanes,  the  swing- 
ing signs,  the  dripping  eaves. 

"Sir,"  said  Johnson  to  Boswell,  "the  happiness  of 
London  is  not  to  be  conceived  but  by  those  who  have 
been  in  it."  When  Wordsworth  invited  Lamb  to  the 
Lake  Region,  Lamb  wrote  back:  "I  have  passed  all  my 
days  in  London  until  I  have  found  as  intense  local  attach- 
ments as  any  of  you  mountaineers  can  have  done  with 
dead  nature.  The  lighted  shops  of  the  Strand  and  Fleet 
Streets,  the  innumerable  trades,  traders,  and  customers; 
the  play-houses,  the  watchmen,  the  drunken  scenes;  life 
awake — if  you  are  awake — at  all  hours  of  the  night;  the 
sun  shining  on  houses  and  pavements,  on  print-shops,  on 
old  book-stalls,  on  parsons  cheapening  books,  on  coffee- 
houses, steams  of  soups  from  kitchens, — these  things 
work  themselves  into  my  mind  and  feed  me  without  the 
power  of  satisfying  me." 

The  London  of  that  day  was  quite  as  busy  in  its  way 
as  now.  It  was  a  noisy  London  and  we  may  get  a  vivid 
idea  of  it  from  The  Spectator,  Walter  Besant  has  most 
vividly  described  it  in  his  London  of  Charles  II.  and 
George  II.,  and  remarks  that  a  modern  would  be  crazed 
by  one  day's  experience  in  this  earlier  London. 

When  the  shop  boy — a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago 
— put  up  the  shutters  and  started  off  at  night  for  a  lark, 
he  had  places  enough  to  go.  On  the  outskirts — over 
which  the  city  has  long  since  spread  herself — were  bowl- 
ing-alleys, and  beer-gardens  where  one  might  enjoy  var- 
ious entertainment,  such  as  rope-walking,  tumbling  and 
pantomime ;  plenty  of  chances  to  spend  your  money  on 

60 


tarts  and  to  find  your  pockets  picked  perhaps  before  the 
evening  had  passed. 

Society  in  those  days  had  much  of  the  affectation 
and  insincerity  which  are  still  its  prominent  characteris- 
tics. There  was  considerably  more  refinement  of  car- 
riage and  gesture,  but  address  was  more  outspoken  and 
brusque.  This  is  a  subject  not  to  be  omitted  by  one  who 
would  enjoy  the  writings  of  Miss  Burney. 

The  royal  household  gave  the  key  to  the  manners  of 
the  upper  grades  of  society  then  as  now;  and  in  coarse, 
vulgar  morals,  all  the  Georges,  the  third  excepted,  were 
of  so  low  a  standard  that  one  may  without  profanity  echo 
the  sentiment  of  an  English  wag  who  wrote:  "When 
George  the  Fourth  from  earth  descended,  God  be 
praised,  the  Georges  ended." 

The  great  characters  of  the  leading  novelists  of  that 
day  are  all  more  or  less  coarse ;  some  are  vulgar  and 
brutish.  Lovelace  was  wonderfully  accomplished,  but 
a  seducer.  Tom  Jones  was  a  conscienceless  daredevil. 
Sophy  Western's  loveliness  is  smirched  by  contact  with 
such  a  man.  Her  father,  Squire  Western,  damns  for  all 
clean-minded  readers  what  is  otherwise  as  strong  a  novel 
as  we  possess. 

This  coarseness  and  vulgarity  crops  out  in  some  of 
the  leading  men  of  the  century.  After  describing  a  din- 
ner scene  at  the  residence  of  one  of  the  nobility,  Thack- 
eray makes  a  reflection  like  this :  "  Fancy  the  moral  con- 
dition of  that  society  in  which  a  lady  of  condition  joked 
with  the  footman,  and  carved  a  sirloin,  and  provided  be- 
sides, a  great  shoulder  of  veal,  a  goose,  a  hare,  a  rabbit, 
chicken,  partridges,  black-puddings  and  a  ham  for  a  din- 
ner for  eight  Christians.  Fancy  a  colonel  of  the  Guards 
putting  his  hands  into  a  dish  of  apricot  fritters  and  help- 

61 


ing  his  neighbor,  a  young  lady  du  monde.  Fancy  a  noble 
lord  calling  out  to  the  servants,  before  the  ladies  at  his 
table  :  'Hang  expense !  Bring  us  a  ha'  porth  o1  cheese.' 
What, — what  could  have  been  the  condition  of  that  polite 
world  in  which  people  openly  ate  goose  after  plum  pud- 
ding, and  took  their  soup  in  the  middle  of  the  dinner?" 

From  the  journal  of  a  fine  lady  of  those  days,  is  the 
following  extract :  "Thursday  :  played  with  the  Duchess 
of  Richmond  and  lost  fifty  guineas.  Friday :  the  party 
lasted  till  nearly  eleven.  I  won  four  guineas.  Sunday : 
eight  P.  M.  went  to  Mrs.  Harrises,  and  lost  five  and  twen- 
ty guineas  at  loo."  Occasionally  is  a  little  addendum : 
"Read  three  chapters  in  Revelations."  "Read  a  little  in 
the  Bible  and  went  to  bed."  This  of  course  was  to  scare 
off  the  old  fellow  with  the  horns. 

Among  the  prominent  characters  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century  are  Dr.  Charles  Burney,  author  of  a  History  of 
Music,  and  his  daughter,  Frances,  author  of  Evelina. 
The  works  left  by  Miss  Burney,  particularly  her  novels, 
Evelina  and  Cecilia,  together  with  the  Early  Diaries,  are 
among  the  literary  treasures  of  the  latter  half  of  the 
Eighteeenth  Century. 

Here  was  a  young  lady  who  never  had  the  advant- 
age of  an  education  outside  her  own  home,  at  boarding 
school  or  college,  and  yet  she  wrote  a  novel  which  at- 
tracted the  interest  of  the  literary  world,  and  caused  the 
greater  men  of  the  period  to  seek  her  acquaintance  and 
say  the  most  complimentary  things.  Burke,  Gibbon, 
Johnson,  Reynolds,  and  scores  of  others  came  to  pay 
their  court  to  a  young  lady  of  twenty-five  who  had  writ- 
ten,— she  knew  not  what  and  had  made  for  herself  an 
enviable  place  in  English  Literature.  One  must  briefly 
sketch  the  more  prominent  influences  under  which  such 


a  mind  gradually  developed,  in  order  to  estimate  the 
character  and  the  permanence  of  its  work.  I  have 
rambled  at  large  with  this  in  view. 

Miss  Burney  was  born  at  Lynn  Regis,  in  Norfolk- 
shire,  in  1752.  When  she  was  eight  years  old,  her  father 
moved  to  London  and  took  up  his  abode  in  Poland  Street, 
in  the  north  part  of  the  city.  Dr.  Burney  was  a  very  love- 
ly man.  One  can  see  from  the  representations  of  his  face 
that  he  was  a  man  of  unusual  talents,  genius,  warmth, 
and  sensitiveness.  He  was  also  a  very  active  man  and 
very  optimistic. 

Through  the  influence  of  Dr.  Arne  and  by  associa- 
tion with  Handel  and  many  other  great  musicians,  he 
arose,  from  the  condition  of  a  poor  and  unknown  boy, 
to  be  courted  at  length  by  the  greatest  men  of  all  profes- 
sions and  of  the  highest  rank  in  England ;  so  much  so 
that  far  more  great  people  could  be  seen  going  into  the 
little  house  of  Dr.  Burney  on  St.  Martin  Street,  Leices- 
ter Square,  than  were  seen  during  the  same  length  of  time 
entering  the  gate  of  Buckingham  Palace  or  the  resi- 
dence of  the  nobility  on  Carlton  Terrace.  Dr.  Burney 
was  employed  in  giving  music  lessons  from  early 
morning  until  well  into  the  evening.  But  when  at 
home,  he  was  the  sunshine  of  the  household, — a  house- 
hold which  was  uniformly  sunny  and  happy. 

Fanny  writes  in  her  diary,  at  twenty-one :  "The 
world  is  very  ill-used  in  being  called  a  bad  one.  If  peo- 
ple did  but  know  how  to  enjoy  the  blessings  they  meet, 
they  would  learn  that  our  share  of  misfortunes  very  often 
serves  but  to  enhance  their  value."  On  the  same  day, 
she  writes  of  her  father:  "The  longer  I  live  and  the 
more  I  see  of  the  world,  the  more  am  I  astonished  and 
delighted  at  the  goodness,  the  merit,  and  the  sweetness 

63 


of  that  best  of  men.  All  that  is  amiable  added  to  all 
that  is  agreeable;  everything  that  is  striking  added  to 
everything  that  is  pleasing:  learning,  taste,  judgment, 
wit,  humour,  candour,  temperance,  patience,  benevo- 
lence,— every  virtue  under  the  sun  is  his."  And  the  hard- 
headed  Samuel  Johnson  confirms  this  judgment.  He 
says :  "I  love  Burney.  My  heart  goes  out  to  meet  him. 
Burney  is  a  man  for  all  the  world  to  love.  I  much 
question  if  there  is  in  the  world  another  such  man." 
Burney  was,  in  some  senses,  the  pet  man  of  his  century 
and  time  in  England.  It  was  said  of  him,  that  "he 
gained  and  kept  the  greatest  number  of  friends." 

It  had  been  Dr.  Burney's  intention  at  one  time  to 
give  the  world  an  account  of  his  long  and  chequered  life. 
We  can  readily  see  now  what  a  rich  treasure  of  con- 
temporary gossip  it  would  have  been.  The  purpose  was 
never  carried  out,  but  Fanny  Burney,  that  is  Madame 
D'Arblay,  in  her  old  age,  spent  years  in  looking  over  his 
correspondence  and  remains,  and  at  that  time  destroyed 
vast  stores  of  materials,  which  our  age, — greedy  for  the 
raw  materials  of  history, — would  seize  on  with  the  most 
eager  avidity.  In  fact,  as  it  is,  what  remains  of  the  so- 
called  "Burney  Collection"  is  regarded  as  among  the 
richest  treasures  of  the  British  Museum,  spoken  of  much 
as  are  the  Elgin  Marbles  or  the  Assyrian  tables. 

Such  a  father  then  was  a  history  in  himself.  The 
house  was,  in  a  sense,  a  great  university.  To  be  there 
was  to  imbibe  some  of  the  advantages  of  a  most  liberal 
education.  Fanny  was  fully  conscious  of  this.  In  her 
seventeenth  year,  she  breaks  out  like  this :  "We  have  a 
library  which  is  a  everlasting  resource  when  one  is  at- 
tacked by  the  spleen,  and  in  short  I  have  all  the  reason 
that  mortal  had  to  be  contented  with  my  lot,  and  I  am 


64 


contented  with,  I  am  grateful  for  it.  If  few  people  are 
more  happy,  few  are  more  sensible  of  their  happiness." 
She  then  breaks  out  into  an  extended  eulogy  of  her 
father  and  into  a  burst  of  thanksgiving  to  God  for  such 
a  gift. 

Lord  Macaulay,  in  his  famous  essay  On  the  Diary 
and  Letters  of  M.  D'Arblay,  takes  Dr.  Burney  to  task  for 
having  neglected  Fanny's  education.  But  the  diarist 
does  not  at  all  agree  with  this,  and  Dr.  Burney's  entire 
conduct  to  his  daughter  disproves  it. 

If  her  education  was  neglected,  so  was  John  Stuart 
Mill's,  Edward  Gibbon's,  Herbert  Spencer's.  It  had  been 
Dr.  Burney's  intention  to  send  Fanny  to  Paris,  but  the 
sudden  death  of  Mrs.  Burney,  in  Fanny's  ninth  year,  in- 
definitely delayed  and  finally  rendered  it  impossible. 

But  just  imagine  a  susceptible  girl  off  at  boarding 
school,  while,  meanwhile,  at  her  home,  drops  in  of  an 
evening  Edmund  Burke,  the  most  learned  if  not  most 
eloquent  statesman  of  any  age;  or  perhaps  Dr.  Johnson, 
of  more  power  in  English  Society  than  the  combined 
forces  of  king  and  parliament;  or  Garrick  to  act  in  pri- 
vate some  distinguished  character,  before  presenting  it  a 
few  minutes  later  at  Covent  Garden  or  Drury  Lane  ;or  per- 
haps there  dropped  in  a  neat  little  gentleman,  somewhat 
under  the  average  height,  of  gentle  manner,  with  large 
face,  larger  nose,  natural  hair  falling  down  his  shoulders 
in  graceful  curls,  who  yesterday  came  to  town  from  Bris- 
tol where  he  had  preached  to  an  audience  of  not  less  than 
twenty-five  thousand  people, — in  some  respects  the  great- 
est man  in  the  history  of  the  church  since  Saul  of  Tar- 
sus, Mr.  John  Wesley.  Think  of  being  absent  from 
such  influences,  at  a  boarding  school. 

65 


And  there  is  education  in  the  neglect  that  allows  a 
young  boy  or  girl  to  roam  at  large  in  a  great  library ;  to 
browse  at  will  under  judicial  direction.  The  fussy 
school  master  does  not  frighten  knowledge  out  of  them, 
or,  what  is  worse,  get  it  into  them  the  wrong  way. 

Fanny  Burney's  education  was  of  this  character. 
One  May,  in  her  sixteenth  year,  she  makes  this  record : 
"I  have  this  moment  finished  reading  a  volume  called 
The  Vicar  of  Wakefield.  It  was  wrote  by  Dr.  Gold- 
smith. His  style  is  rational  and  sensible.  The  descrip- 
tion of  the  rural  simplicity  of  Dr.  Primrose,  his  simple 
unaffected  contentment,  and  domestic  happiness,  gave 
me  much  pleasure.  It  appears  to  me  impossible  that  any 
one  should  read  this  book  through  with  a  dry  eye ;  at  the 
same  time,  the  best  part  of  it  is  that  which  turns  grief 
out  of  doors."  Those  words  show  discrimination. 

When  sixteen  years  old  she  writes :  "We  live  here, 
generally  speaking,  in  a  very  regular  way.  We  breakfast 
always  at  ten  and  rise  as  much  before  as  we  please, — we 
dine  precisely  at  two — drink  tea  at  six — and  sup  exactly 
at  nine.  I  make  a  kind  of  rule  never  to  indulge  myself 
in  two  most  favorite  pursuits — reading  and  writing — in 
the  morning.  No,  like  a  very  good  girl,  I  give  that  up 
wholly  to  needle-work,  by  which  means  my  reading  and 
writing  in  the  P.  M.  is  a  pleasure  I  cannot  be  blamed  for 
by  my  mother,  as  it  does  not  take  up  the  time  I  ought 
to  spend  otherwise." 

This  shows  a  reader  who  did  not  dissipate  in  books, 
Here  again:  "I  am  reading  Plutarch's  Lives.  His 
own,  wrote  by  Dryden,  has  charmed  me  beyond  expres- 
sion. I  exceedingly  rejoice  that  I  did  not  read  them  be- 
fore now,  as  I  am  every  day  more  able  to  enjoy  them." 


66 


She  speaks  of  her  joy  at  reading  translations  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey  and  later  of  the  pleasure  with  which 
she  took  up  Italian.  Then  she  says :  "I  rise  at  five,  six, 
or  seven — my  latest  hour.  I  have  just  finished  Middle- 
ton's  Cicero,  which  I  read  immediately  after  Hooke's 
Roman  History.  It  is  a  delightful  book.  The  style  is 
manly  and  elegant ;  and,  though  he  may  be  too  partial  to 
Cicero,  the  fine  writings  he  occasionally  translates  of  that 
great  man,  authorize  and  excuse  his  partiality."  This  is 
sound  criticism  of  a  book  which  is  still  a  classic.  She 
reads  the  Henriade  of  Voltaire,  a  little  later,  and  gives 
it  a  scathing  criticism. 

From  these  few  citations  you  perceive  a  young  mind 
getting  for  itself  the  elements  of  a  liberal  education,  fill- 
ing in  the  bud  so  soon  to  burst  in  delicate  blossom.  She 
reads  the  languages,  reads  with  discrimination  and  di- 
gests what  she  reads.  Her  father's  loveliness,  his  manner- 
liness— two  things  quite  unusual  in  those  brusque  times 
— together  with  his  love  of  learning,  had  attracted  all  this 
talent  to  their  little  home,  and  made  it  a  sort  of  univer- 
sity. Dr.  Burney's  industry  was  constant  and  he  in- 
stilled industry  into  his  children.  Seven  A.  M.  saw  him 
at  his  music  lessons;  his  meals  were  often  taken  in  the 
coach  as  he  rode  between  pupils.  Often  he  was  not  at 
home  before  nine  at  night.  And  all  the  time  he  was 
preparing  his  History  of  Music,  little  Fanny  acting  as 
his  secretary.  And  all  this  time  she  was  stealing  odd 
moments  to  perfect  her  novel. 

Fanny's  father  then  and  the  blessings  that  came  with 
him,  together  with  her  extreme  devotion  to  him,  formed 
the  chief  element  in  her  education.  Her  own  mother 
died  when  Fanny  was  nine  years  old.  She  had  been  an 
excellent  mother.  She  was  replaced  by  another,  six 


67 


years  afterwards,  a  very  dear  friend  of  the  first  Mrs. 
Burney,  and  greatly  beloved  by  all  the  children.  The 
new  mother  did  not  believe  in  young  girls  writing,  an:' 
was  the  cause  of  Fanny's  burning,  in  her  fifteenth  year, 
all  she  had  ever  written,  among  other  things  The  Story  of 
Caroline  Evelyn. 

We  have  seen  that  Fanny  had  a  well-stored  mind. 
She  was  naturally  alert  and  had  grown  more  keen  and 
intense.  She  had  a  mind  which  took  snap-shots,  and 
such  a  mind  should  make  a  writer.  In  her  twenty-first 
year,  she  visits  Exter.  She  attends  the  afternoon  ser- 
vices in  its  cathedral.  But  the  singing  is  so  comical  that 
it  spoils  for  her  all  the  service.  There  is  no  organ.  The 
time  is  set  by  a  weaver.  The  people  are  trying  to  sing 
in  parts,  but  cannot.  The  description  is  very  entertain- 
ing. To  enjoy  the  description,  one  must  remember  that 
it  was  the  time  when  there  were  as  yet  hardly  any  hymns 
and  when  the  people,  for  the  most  part,  sang  in  unison. 
There  were  no  instruments  except  an  occasional  violin- 
cello  or  bassoon,  or  possibly  a  barrel-organ.  The  latter 
could  play  a  dozen  tunes  and  grind  out  "Old  Hundred," 
"Devizes,"  or  "St.  Martins."  Comical  indeed  must  the 
effect  have  been  as  the  lagging  people  sought  to  keep 
pace  with  the  organ  when  once  wound  up  and  started. 
Now  a  camera  as  sensitive  as  her  mind  will  be  daily  tak- 
ing innumerable  impressions  which  are  the  best  materials 
for  novels. 

Another  of  the  persons  contributing  to  make 
Fanny's  novels  a  success  was  Mr.  Samuel  Crisp.  She 
had  been  gathering  materials  for  writing:  he  gave  her 
hints  which  moulded  her  form  and  style.  Evelina,  like 
Pamela,  Humphrey  Clinker,  Red-Gauntlet,  etc.,  is  writ- 
ten as  a  series  of  letters.  And  as  we  are  aware  that 


the  writing  of  an  interesting  letter,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
long  series  of  them,  requires  a  peculiar  type  of  mind; 
and  as  Miss  Burney  has,  among  the  number  of  her  let- 
ters, some  that  are  first  rank ;  we  may  well  glance  for  a 
moment  at  the  influences  which  perfected  her  in  this  lit- 
erary type. 

Samuel  Crisp  was  a  man  of  fine  appearance,  of  lib- 
eral education  and  fortune.  His  tastes  combined  liter- 
ature, music,  and  the  arts.  He  aspired  to  write  a  drama, 
against  the  advice  of  Garrick  and  other  friends.  The 
play  was  not  well  received,  and  Crisp  retired  to  live  at 
Chesington  Hall,  not  far  from  London,  and  came  to  town 
only  in  the  theatre  and  opera  season.  It  should  also  be 
said  that,  after  some  years  of  residence  in  Rome  and 
other  Italian  cities,  Crisp  had  come  back  to  England  to 
live  on  his  estates  at  Hampton,  where — in  consequence  of 
too  liberal  entertainment  of  too  many  friends — he  had 
run  through  most  of  his  fortune.  His  retirement  was 
not  solely  due  to  despondency  at  the  reception  of  his 
drama,  but  that,  together  with  his  weakened  fortunes  and 
health,  led  to  his  retirement.  Crisp's  intimacy  with  the 
Burneys  began  in  Fanny's  ninth  year,  he  being  then  fifty- 
five.  The  relation  between  them  was  almost  as  close  as 
father  and  child.  The  Burneys  are  always  going  to 
Chesington  and  Fanny  always  calls  him  "Daddy." 

Crisp's  life  had  failed,  so  far  as  the  drama  of  Vir- 
ginia was  concerned,  but  when  he,  of  set  purpose,  un- 
dertook to  mould  the  life  of  "little  Burney,"  as  Johnson 
called  her,  he  rendered  the  literary  world  a  unique  ser- 
vice. A  quotation  or  two  will  show  you  that  he  had  an 
intention.  Here  is  a  short  extract  from  the  first  letter 
he  ever  wrote  Fanny,  in  her  twenty-first  year:  "Dear 
Fanny,  though  the  weak  knotty  joints  of  my  knuckles 


are  somewhat  tired  with  writing  to  your  mamma,  yet  I 
cannot  forbear  acknowledgement  of  your  kind  and  enter- 
taining letter.  You  are  an  exceedingly  good  child. 
You  have  good  and  grateful  sentiments  about  you.  In 
short  you  have  good  things  in  you  and  I  wish  it  was  in 
my  power  to  bring  about — but  stop,  my  pen,  you  are  go- 
ing beyond  your  line;  but  there  are  very  many  valuable 
people  in  this  wide  world  of  ours,  that  for  want  of 
rightly  understanding  one  another,  do  not  do  what  na- 
ture seems  to  have  intended  they  should  do, — I  mean, 
draw  close  to  one  another  in  mutual  attraction."  In  an- 
other, soon  after,  he  writes :  "If  once  you  set  about 
framing  studied  letters,  that  are  to  be  correct,  nicely 
grammatical,  and  run  in  smooth  periods,  I  shall  mind 
them  no  otherwise  than  as  newspapers  of  intelligence. 
There  is  no  fault  in  an  epistolary  correspondence  like 
stiffness  and  study.  Dash  away  whatever  comes  upper- 
most ;  the  sudden  sallies  of  imagination,  clapped  down  on 
paper,  just  as  they  arise,  are  worth  folios,  and  have  all 
the  warmth  and  merit  of  that  sort  of  nonsense  which  is 
eloquent  in  love."  Remember  these  are  the  words  of  an 
old  man,  nearly  threescore  and  ten,  to  a  young  girl  of 
twenty-one.  It  is  not  possible  here  to  review  a  corres- 
pondence which,  on  both  sides,  was  rich  and  helpful,  and 
contributed  to  render  Evelina  a  permanent  success. 

It  would  be  a  distinct  oversight  not  to  mention,  in 
this  connection,  a  correspondence  which  took  place  at 
intervals,  during  this  same  period,  between  Fanny  and  a 
Mr.  James  Hutton.  Hutton  must  have  been  nearly  as 
well  on  in  years  as  Crisp.  He  was  a  Moravian,  and  lived 
in  Chelsea  on  a  property  leased  by  Count  Zinzendorf. 
He  was  a  sort  of  head  among  the  Moravians,  pietistic, 
but  with  a  remarkable  degree  of  horse-sense.  He  made 


70 


himself  a  great  friend  with  the  Burneys.  I  copy  the  fol- 
lowing from  one  of  his  letters  to  Fanny.  "You  will  per- 
haps recollect  that  the  first  page  at  least  of  this  is  in 
answer  to  several  parts  of  your  letter,  which  I  have  be- 
fore me ;  though  it  was  so  impressed  upon  my  mind  as 
that  I  could  answer  it  without  looking  at  it  again. 
Whenever  you  write  from  the  heart,  be  assured  that  every 
correspondent  of  taste  will  have  reason  to  be  satisfied 
and  pleased;  and  never  let  letter-writing  cause  you  any 
study.  Nothing  ever  disgusted  me  so  much  as  many  la- 
bored, printed  letters  I  have  seen,  which  were  rather  per- 
formances than  letters,  and  therefore,  painful,  stiff,  far- 
fetched, unnatural  stuff.  Such  are  all  Bussy-Rabutin's 
almost.  Madame  de  Sevigne's  are  infinitely  more  to  the 
taste  of  the  discerning,  while  Rabutin's  vex  and  tease  my 
heart  and  disappoint  it,  and  are  nauseous  to  my  very  soul, 
considered  as  letters.  Affectation  spoils  everything  in 
writing,  singing,  speaking,  books,  gesture,  gait, — in 
short,  in  everything.  I  have  found  much  pleasure  in 
Madame  de  Maintenon's  letters.  They  are  most  cordial, 
free,  easy,  and  unaffected.  But  why  should  I  not  leave 
off?" 

But,  to  speak  no  farther  of  the  influences  that  fed 
the  mind  or  moulded  the  expressions  of  this  young  girl, 
there  came  a  day,  it  was  the  latter  part  of  January, 
1778,  when  a  novel  appeared  in  London  with  the  title 
Evelina,  or  a  Young  Lady's  Entrance  Into  the  World. 
It  appeared  in  a  manner  so  silent,  shy,  and  secret;  the 
news  of  its  excellence  filtered  into  the  community  so 
gradually,  then  so  rapidly;  the  demand  for  it  at  the 
book-stalls  became  so  great,  that,  considering  the  kind 
and  number  of  people  who  were  affected  by  it,  together 
with  the  permanent  influence  it  had  on  the  heart,  and  the 


71 


good  it  accomplished  in  the  field  of  English  fiction,  noth- 
ing exactly  like  the  manner  of  its  appearance  has  ever 
been  known  in  the  history  of  literature. 

This  young  genius,  who  had  been  advised  by  her 
stepmother  not  to  write,  had  burned  the  History  of 
Caroline  Evelyn,  but  it  was  a  Banquo's  ghost. 

In  the  latter  part  of  1770  Dr.  Burney  was  making  a 
tour  of  France  and  Italy  for  his  health.  It  was  during 
those  months  that  Fanny  had  tackled  again  the  old  story 
under  the  new  name  Evelina.  When  Dr.  Burney  re- 
turned she  had  to  devote  all  her  time  to  him  and  did 
nothing  on  the  novel.  But  in  a  year  or  so  he  was  again 
absent  in  Germany,  during  which  time  the  family  moved 
into  St.  Martin's  Street  and  Fanny  began  writing  again. 
Soon  the  father  returned  and  was  busy  in  getting  out  his 
History  of  Music.  As  Fanny  saw  her  own  fair  hand- 
writing come  back,  so  to  speak,  from  the  printers  in  real 
type,  she  thirsted  to  see  her  own  story  come  in  the  same 
fashion.  So  she  took  the  story  which  had  been  rather 
roughly  finished,  wrote  it  out  in  a  neat  hand  and  offered 
it  to  Dodsley,  who  had  published  Rasselas,  The  Diction- 
ary, Gray's  Elegy,  etc.,  in  Pall  Mall  place.  He  would 
not  look  at  the  anonymous  manuscript.  It  was  finally 
offered  to  Mr.  Loundes,  of  Fleet  Street,  for  twenty 
pounds. 

Here  is  the  playful  manner  in  which  she  begins  her 
diary  for  1778:  "This  year  was  ushered  in  by  a  grand 
and  most  important  event — for  at  the  latter  end  of  Jan- 
uary, the  literary  world  was  favored  with  the  first  pub- 
lication of  the  ingenious,  learned,  and  most  profound, 
Fanny  Burney!  I  doubt  not  but  that  this  memorable 
affair  will,  in  future  times,  mark  the  period  whence 
chronologers  will  date  the  zenith  of  the  polite  arts  in  this 


island,  etc."  Her  two  aunts  are  first  apprized  of  her 
secret,  then  her  cousin,  Edward.  Her  sisters  were  in  the 
secret.  One  morning  at  breakfast,  Mrs.  Burney,  in  pres- 
ence of  the  girls,  read  the  announcement  of  the  publica- 
tion of  a  novel  called  Evelina,  going  right  on,  in  blissful 
ignorance,  to  other  topics. 

We  shall  say  nothing  of  Cecilia.  Five  years  after 
the  appearance  of  Evelina  old  "Daddy  Crisp"  died. 
Streatham  was  not  a  centre  of  attraction  as  it  had  been. 
Johnson  had  a  paralytic  stroke  and  died  soon  after  it. 
Fanny's  world  was  much  darker,  so  many  lights  had 
gone  out  of  it.  A  little  later  she  was  chosen  to  the  office 
of  maid-in-waiting  on  Queen  Charlotte,  and  when  she 
came  forth  from  that  confinement  it  was  into  quite  an- 
other world,  with  tastes  changed  and  health  prostrated. 
It  was  with  difficulty  she  escaped  the  royal  prison.  In 
1793  she  was  married  to  M.  D'Arblay,  a  French  officer, 
who  with  Madame  de  Stael  and  others  was  living  as  a 
refugee  in  England.  The  two  lived  happily  together  for 
years,  partly  in  England  and  partly  in  France.  Fanny, 
or  Madame  D'Arblay,  enjoyed  her  father's  presence  for 
many  years,  since  he  did  not  die  until  she  herself  was 
sixty-two  years  old. 

Fanny  Burney  lived  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
Madame  D'Arblay  in  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Fanny 
Burney  was  knowing  to  the  society  and  customs  of  that 
earlier  time,  she  lived  to  see  the  utterly  changed  customs 
of  our  own  time.  In  Fanny  Burney's  day,  the  sedan- 
chair,  with  now  and  then  a  cab  or  coach,  was  the  only 
mode  of  conveyance.  Madame  D'Arblay  lived  to  see 
the  locomotive  and  to  ride  to  and  from  the  South  Coast 
in  carriages  drawn  by  steam. 

73 


If  her  writings  lack  interest — and  pray,  what  novels 
do  not  ? — it  is  because  she  was  of  too  alert  a  nature ;  she 
dwelt  too  much  upon,  she  adhered  too  closely  to  the  man- 
ners and  people  of  her  own  time.  She  who  had  received 
twenty  pounds  for  Evelina  received  three  thousand  for 
Camilla,  but  the  merits  of  each  novel  were  almost  in  in- 
verse ratio  to  the  sums  received. 

One  is  safe  in  closing  such  a  ramble  with  the  senti- 
ments of  one  whose  criticisms  are  still  accepted  as  sound, 
and,  in  doing  so,  it  is  the  wish  of  the  writer  to  recommend 
to  you  the  essay  of  Macaulay  which  is  among  his  best. 

"Miss  Burney  did  for  the  English  novel  what  Jeremy 
Collier  did  for  the  English  drama;  and  she  did  it  in  a 
better  way.  She  first  showed  that  a  tale  might  be  writ- 
ten in  which  both  the  fashionable  and  the  vulgar  life  of 
London  might  be  exhibited  with  great  force,  and  with 
broad  comic  humor,  and  which  yet  should  not  contain  a 
line  inconsistent  with  rigid  morality  or  virgin  delicacy. 
She  took  away  the  reproach  which  lay  on  a  most  useful 
and  delightful  species  of  composition.  She  vindicated 
the  right  of  her  sex  to  an  equal  share  in  the  fair  and  noble 
province  of  letters.  Several  accomplished  women  have 
followed  in  her  track.  At  present,  the  novels  which  we 
owe  to  English  ladies  form  no  small  part  of  the  literary 
glory  of  our  country.  No  class  of  works  is  more  honor- 
ably distinguished  by  fine  observation,  by  grace,  by  deli- 
cate wit,  by  pure  moral  feeling.  Several  among  the  suc- 
cessors of  Madame  D'Arblay  have  equalled  her;  two,  we 
think,  have  surpassed  her.  But  the  fact  that  she  has 
been  surpassed  gives  her  an  additional  claim  to  our  re- 
spect and  gratitude ;  for  in  truth  we  owe  to  her  not  only 
Evelina,  Cecilia,  and  Camilla,  but  also  Mansfield  Park 
and  The  Absentee" 


74 


So  far  Macaulay,  and  at  the  close,  his  remarks  seem 
almost  comical,  for  we  may  add  Jane  Eyre,  Adam  Bede, 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,  Robert  Elsmere,  The  Helmet  of 
Navarre.  What  a  host  of  the  best  novelists  now  are  wo- 
men. Women's  achievements  in  fiction  during  the  last 
forty  years — and  they  are  no  doubt  in  good  measure  due 
to  the  impetus  given  by  Evelina — are  the  later  marvel  of 
English  Literature.  By  her  achievements  here  she  has 
come  very  near  to  displacing  her  accomplished  and  privi- 
leged brothers  and  has  formed  the  front  ranks. 

Had  her  opportunities  been  equal  to  those  of  man 
during  all  these  centuries,  would  not  the  greatest  dra- 
matists and  historians  have  been  women  ?  As  it  is,  there 
are  noble  traces  of  woman  everywhere  in  our  literature. 

No  novel  is  readable  that  has  not  had  a  woman  in  it. 
Long  have  we  known  that.  Lyric  poetry  sighs  its  soul 
away — sometimes  in  sheer  nonsense — over  a  lovely  wo- 
man. John  Ruskin  wrote  long  ago  in  regard  to  Shakes- 
peare's men,  that  there  is  always  a  flaw  even  in  the  best  of 
them.  The  plays  are  built  really  on  the  women.  You 
have — as  he  says,  and  perhaps  it  is  true — no  hero. 
Othello  would  have  been  had  his  simplicity  not  made  him 
a  prey  to  baseness.  Hamlet  would  be  but  for  his  in- 
dolence and  speculative  dreaming;  Romeo  is  an  impa- 
tient boy ;  Antonio  is  languidly  submissive  to  adverse  for- 
tune ;  whereas  there  is  hardly  a  play  which  has  not  a  per- 
fect woman  in  it,  steadfast  in  grave  hope  and  in  errorless 
purpose.  Cordelia,  Desdemona,  Isabella,  Imogen,  Per- 
dita,  Viola,  Rosalind — these  are,  in  a  sense,  faultless.  So 
exalted,  then,  are  the  places  held  by  woman  among  the 
creations  of  English  fiction. 

Nay  more,  Providence  seems  to  be  quite  on  the  side 
of  the  ladies,  for  the  three  flourishing  periods  of  our  lit- 


75 


erary  history  are  named  after  Elizabeth,  Anne,  and  Vic- 
toria. 

Delivered  before  the  Woman's  Club  of  State  College, 
February  2,  1897. 


III.     A  BROTHERHOOD  OF  CULTURE 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  last  century,  there  was  estab- 
lished at  William  and  Mary  College,  a  society  called  Phi 
Beta  Kappa,  chapters  of  which  were  established  at  Yale 
in  1780  and  at  Harvard  in  1781.  It  now  numbers  more 
than  a  score  of  chapters.  The  society  was  founded  "in 
order  to  unite  the  wise  and  the  virtuous  of  every  degree 
and  of  every  country."  It  has  been  mainly  honorary, 
meeting  but  once  a  year  to  listen  to  a  learned  address 
from  some  person  of  eminence,  to  transact  any  necessary 
business,  and  to  elect  undergraduate  and  honorary  mem- 
bers. Its  standing  rule  has  been  to  make  eligible  for 
membership  that  fourth  or  third  of  the  graduating  class 
which  ranked  highest  in  scholarship  and  was  of  good 
moral  character.  It  has,  furthermore,  been  customary  to 
elect  to  membership  a  limited  number  of  men,  usually 
graduates  of  college  only,  who  were  not  eligible  to  mem- 
bership at  graduation,  but  who  have  in  the  intervening 
years  done  something  to  add  to  their  reputation  or  effi- 
ciency in  some  substantial  way.  If  a  man  has  grown  to 
be  a  commanding  preacher,  or  has  made  a  sound  lawyer, 
or  a  good  councilman,  or  a  sagacious  educator,  he  has 
gradually  won  the  recognition  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  In 
this  way  this  society  has  had  a  widespread  influence  for 
good,  and  has  been  entirely  free  from  snobbishness  and 
pedantry. 

76 


Among  the  Universities  and  Colleges  of  our  type, 
there  has  sprung  up  a  strong  desire  for  a  society  of  like, 
or  nearly  like,  character,  to  which  should  be  eligible  all 
persons  who  rank  within  the  first  fourth  or  third  of 
their  class  at  graduation. 

The  unique  character  of  such  a  society  and  its  pecu- 
liar advantage  for  men  who  need  stimulus  is  only  too 
obvious,  but  it  is  not  unfitting  that  we  dwell  for  a  mo- 
ment on  these  thoughts,  particularly  as  we  have  just  in- 
stituted a  chapter  and  are  inducting  our  first  class  into 
membership. 

The  stimulants  to  education  are  both  positive  and 
negative.  It  is  the  birch  rod  that  first  makes  the  boy 
smart.  The  teacher  gets  even  with  him  by  keeping  him 
after  school,  and  as  he  gets  older  the  faculty  takes  repri- 
sals in  the  shape  of  reprimands,  demerits,  suspensions, 
or  dismissals.  There  is  also  a  positive  side.  The  Ro- 
man school  master  began  with  crusts  of  gingerbread  in 
order  to  coax  boys  to  learn  the  elements.  The  ginger- 
bread for  the  older  sort  comes  in  the  shape  of  grades, 
prizes,  honors,  diplomas,  scholarships,  and  membership 
in  societies,  learned  or  otherwise.  These  are  all  stimu- 
lants of  like  intent ;  they  aim  to  keep  a  man  toned  up  to 
work  and  true  to  standards. 

But  some  of  these  positive  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
indispensible  incitements  stand  squarely  in  the  way  of 
manly  work.  Why  can't  we  have  an  intelligent,  disinter- 
ested man,  an  outsider,  to  umpire  a  daily  recitation? 
The  room  where  instruction  is  given  should  be  absorbed 
in  work  and  not  distracted  by  a  record  of  it.  As  it  is, 
there  are  on  the  part  of  the  instructor  occasional  in- 
advertences, unexplainable  attractions  and  repulsions 
which  mysteriously  exist  between  natures,  and  these 

77 


make  him  use  the  marking  system  unfairly  and  unevenly. 
I  think  unquestionably  the  young  ladies  outrank  the  gen- 
tlemen sometimes,  from  the  fact  that  we  incline  more 
naturally  to  them  than  we  do  to  the  masculine  persuasion. 
Anyhow  it  is  picayune  to  be  putting  on  your  glasses  to 
score  the  rank  of  a  senior  who,  in  a  few  days,  is  to  be  re- 
lieved, thank  Heaven,  from  the  long  years  of  "scor- 
ing," of  one  sort  and  another,  which  he  has  endured. 
He  ought  to  have  known  long  since  the  value  of  work  per 
se.  He  ought  already  to  be  absorbed  in  loyal,  strenuous 
work.  But  as  it  is,  his  lofty  ambition  is  "to  skin 
through,"  as  he  calls  it,  and  this  because  of  that  Eozoic 
survival,  the  marking  system. 

The  prize  is  even  more  objectionable.  If  it  is 
awarded  for  a  brief  competition,  crookedness  may  easily 
secure  it.  At  Yale,  in  the  old  days,  the  oratorical  prize  con- 
testants hired  carriages  and  filled  them  with  their  friends. 
These  were  driven  to  the  hall  of  contest  for  the  purpose 
of  making  applause,  and  more  than  one  contestant  has 
carried  off  the  prize  that  way.  But  even  where  a  prize 
is  given  for  all  round  excellence  and  after  years  of  com- 
petition, under  circumstances  where  possibility  of  crook- 
edness is  wholly  eliminated,  motives  will  be  impugned 
and  the  man  will  hear  that  original  and  never  before 
heard  of  accusation  that  he  had  "a  pull  with  the  faculty." 

Some  of  us  older  ones  still  recall  the  crucifixion 
caused  by  commencement  parts — valedictory  and  saluta- 
tory, philosophical,  classical,  scientific,  and  other  orations 
galore.  With  pleasing  sarcasm,  may  we  inquire  for 
them  now  in  the  spirit  of  the  old  song: 

"Where  are  the  Marys  and  Anns  and  Elizas 

Loving  and  lovely  of  yore? 
Look  in  the  columns  of  the  old  advertisers 


Married  and  dead  by  the  score. 
Gone  like  the  tenants  that  quit  without  warning, 
Down  the  back  entry  of  time." 

These  things  reduced  teachers  to  pedagogues  and 
kept  boys  from  becoming  men.  Conceit  of  scholarship, 
either  in  the  professor's  chair  or  the  student's  bench,  we 
are  hopefully  outgrowing.  Education  is  intended  to 
create  men  who  shall  secure  power  to  work,  in  some  sort, 
and  who  shall  love  work. 

Associations  which  bring  together  men  of  culture, 
of  social  power,  of  moral  tone,  have  long  since  furnished 
incitements  in  harmony  with  man's  larger  growth  and 
suited  to  all  his  later  years.  The  older  societies  of  this 
sort,  like  Alpha  Delta  Phi  and  Psi  Upsilon,  have  in  most 
colleges  elected  men  on  their  entrance  to  college.  It 
was  genuine  inspiration  for  a  young  chap  entering  Col- 
lege to  be  told  that  he  had  been  honored  with  an  election 
to  one  of  these  societies.  Where  such  a  society  had  a 
palatial  hall,  and  where  its  men  were  of  high  standard, 
to  secure  such  an  election  was  the  privilege  of  a  life- 
time. Election  to  the  Senior  Societies  at  Yale,  where 
society  influences  are  unusually  strong,  has  always  been 
considered  the  proudest  privilege  of  a  college  career. 
And  when  the  tottering,  gray-haired  old  members  of 
these  societies  return  to  Yale  at  Commencement  time, 
you  will  find  them  invariably  at  the  chapter  house  of  the 
"Skull  and  Bones"  or  the  "Scroll  and  Key."  Such  cir- 
cles were  small,  but  the  spirits  were  choice  and  the  bonds 
very  close. 

But  of  all  societies  for  the  encouragement  of  sound 
learning,  none  has  had  so  extended  or  so  salutary  an  in- 
fluence as  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  It  has  studiously  sought,  in 
all  its  chapters,  men  of  the  best  type.  Real  worth  has 


79 


secured  a  man  membership  "whatever  may  have  been  his 
race  or  previous  condition  of  servitude,"  "qualicunque 
patre  natus,"  "whoever  may  have  been  his  dad,"  as 
Horace  says.  Many  a  man  has  waked  up  happy,  after 
four  years'  hard  plodding,  to  find  within  a  week  of  grad- 
uation that  he  has  made  Phi  Beta  Kappa.  She  has 
offered  no  prizes,  she  has  granted  no  parchments,  she 
has  held,  in  most  chapters,  only  one  annual  meeting,  and 
yet  the  influence  she  has  wielded  has  been  subtle,  cath- 
olic, and  permeating — the  strongest  fibre,  by  all  means, 
in  American  Scholarship.  To  secure  its  badge,  to  learn 
the  meaning  of  its  symbols,  was  to  secure  a  nominal,  and 
sometimes  a  real,  touch  with  some  of  the  master  spirits 
of  the  age.  In  her  yearly  meetings,  and  through  the 
mouths  of  her  learned  orators  she  has  contributed  to  the 
resources  of  American  Literature,  as  many  examples 
might  show,  among  them  Emerson's  address  on  "The 
American  Scholar." 

But  Phi  Beta  Kappa  has  narrowed  its  original  in- 
tent. They  say  that  anywhere  within  the  Queen's  do- 
mains, just  as  sure  as  a  "Liberal"  gets  rich  he  invariably 
turns  "Conservative."  Phi  Beta  Kappa  now  unites  the 
wise  and  the  virtuous  only  as  they  are  college-bred  and 
classically  educated.  Hence  the  need,  in  institutions 
like  ours,  of  a  society  whose  tone  shall  be  equally  high, 
but  whose  spirit  shall  be  more  catholic,  a  society  not 
satisfied  to  welcome  the  man  with  theological,  or  phi- 
losophical, or  literary  culture  alone;  but  a  society  which 
shall  tear  down  all  the  fences,  for  it  is  these  that  obstruct 
all  prospects ;  which  shall  secure  the  "Unity  and  Democ- 
racy of  Education." 

That  phrase,  which  is  part  of  the  preamble  of  our 
new  society,  might  well  be  made  the  subject  of  a  learned 

80 


dissertation  at  some  later  meeting  of  this  society.  If  the 
phrase  was  chosen  of  set  purpose,  after  a  broad  survey 
of  the  whole  field  of  educational  history,  then  certainly 
it  would  be  difficult  to  improve  upon  it.  That  aim  has 
been  awaited  at  least  five  and  twenty  centuries.  For 
education,  as  yet,  has  been  neither  "united"  nor  "demo- 
cratic." The  antagonisms  among  schoolmasters  and 
schools  of  education  have  been  greater  than  among  sects 
and  theologians.  And  the  antagonisms  are  as  outspoken 
today  as  ever,  though  the  issues  are  different.  Educa- 
tional theory  in  our  own  country  has  met  with  an  entire 
upheaval  since  1870  and  the  end  will  not  appear  for  many 
years. 

Glance  backward  over  twenty- four  centuries.  It 
is  hardly  probable  that  for  many  centuries  to  come  fairer 
phases  of  civilization  will  bless  this  world  than  those 
benign  influences  consequent  upon  the  rise  of  Grecian 
Literature,  which  spread  over  the  shores  of  the  Archi- 
pelago, over  Sicily,  and  lower  Italy,  and  the  south  of 
France;  which  caused  to  be  reared  on  many  a  wooded 
slope  temples,  the  very  perfection  of  symmetry  and  taste, 
which  made  every  acropolis  and  market-place  a  museum 
of  art.  One  weeps  to  think  how  this  fair  progress  was 
stayed  by  Spartan  meanness  and  duplicity.  It  irks  one 
to  think  how  the  Roman  mind  but  half  interpreted  the 
Greek  spirit,  and  one  trembles  to  think  that  the  whole  fair 
vision  was  all  but  obliterated ;  that  Homer  and  Horace  and 
Virgil  were  barely  saved  from  destruction  in  a  chaos  al- 
most equalling  that  which  preceded  Creation,  the  pal- 
impsest alone  remaining,  in  some  cases,  to  show  to  us 
the  almost  illegible  traces  of  what  learned  ignorance  had 
failed,  thank  God,  wholly  to  obliterate. 


81 


When  a  man  sees,  in  the  first  Christian  centuries, 
the  great  giants  pitted  against  each  other — Justin  and 
Tertullian  against  Plutarch  and  Aurelius  and  Lucian — 
he  knows  the  darkness  is  gathering  over  learning.  He 
knows  the  light  of  heathen  genius  must  be  extinguished 
in  the  presence  of  such  holy  men  as  Basil  and  Chrysos- 
tom,  St.  Augustine,  and  Jerome.  With  the  increase  of 
monasticism  he  sees  the  setting  of  all  rational  knowledge 
and  he  feels  the  gathering  of  the  fogs  of  subtlety  and 
sophistry  that  are  to  overhang  the  night  of  Europe.  The 
light  of  epic  and  lyric  poetry  gone  out,  the  cathedrals 
and  monasteries  were  the  sole  guardians  of  a  knowledge 
gloomy  as  themselves.  The  school  men  of  the  West  and 
the  Greek  disputants  of  the  East  thought  they  had  the 
whole  of  knowledge.  And  indeed  they  had,  in  a  deadly 
grip,  too,  had  it  not  been  for  other  forces  coming  to  the 
rescue — Bernard  and  Anselm,  Thomas  Aquinas  and 
Roger  Bacon,  or  better  still,  Dante  and  Petrarch,  Wiclif 
and  Caxton,  the  Stephenses,  Luther,  and  Erasmus.  One 
scans  his  way  down  through  all  this  dark  history  with 
trembling,  wondering  how,  in  the  turmoil  and  disagree- 
ment, anything  was  saved,  wondering  that  education  had 
not  effectually  put  the  knife  to  its  own  throat.  "Unity 
and  Democracy  of  Education"  indeed!  Well  may  one 
exclaim  who  tries  to  compass  the  real  situation. 

And  if  the  day  of  unity  and  democracy  in  education 
had  even  now  come  we  might  take  heart  of  grace.  Do 
we  then  live  in  days  of  greater  educational  charity  ?  We 
tell  of  a  greater  enlightenment  and  speak  of  a  broader  in- 
telligence and  yet  we  relegate  all  the  past  to  oblivion  with 
a  flippancy  which  is  amazing.  The  sound  of  wheels  is 
in  our  ears.  The  hiss,  the  hum,  the  buzz,  wholly  occupy 
us.  We  ungraciously  think  there  never  has  been  any- 


thing  before  us  and  that  there  will  be  hereafter  only  we 
and  our  like.  But  if  we  looked  at  the  whole  process  of 
man's  education — past  and  future  as  well  as  present — we 
should  see,  that  in  all  these  sweeping  changes  to  which 
education  has  been  doomed,  will  doubtless  still  be 
doomed,  there  is  a  unity  and  there  is  a  gradually  ap- 
proaching universality;  seeing  this  we  should  look  upon 
the  past  with  more  reverence  and  upon  the  future  with 
more  humility.  Doubtless  on  the  Nile  and  the  Euphra- 
tes, on  the  Indus  and  the  Yangtse  whole  civilizations 
have  been  entirely  obliterated,  which  have  contributed  as 
much  to  our  day  as  we  shall  contribute  to  that  far  future. 
If  we  look  wisely  and  faithfully  and  far  enough  into  the 
future  will  not  a  wise  charity  cause  us  to  read  there  the 
ruins  of  our  own  age — the  refuse  heap  of  scrap-iron,  our 
"pyramids,"  our  "acropolis?" 

In  these  words  we  have  been  pleading  briefly  for  a 
larger  charity  and  a  deeper  love  toward  all  education  of 
all  phases.  It  has  all  helped  to  rear  the  structure  on 
which  we  are  built  and  must  build.  We  hail  this  new 
society,  then,  because  it  will  welcome  the  intelligent  engi- 
neer, or  agriculturist,  or  architect,  or  chemist,  or  physi- 
cist as  heartily  to  membership  as  it  will  the  man  of  let- 
ters ;  or,  if  you  prefer  it  so,  will  welcome  him  as  them. 
It  is  the  product  of  noble  thought  that  we  seek  to  en- 
courage and  reward,  recognizing  among  these  products 
Iliads,  and  Pullman  cars,  dramas  and  triple  expansion 
engines,  land  fertilizers,  or  sewage  systems  or  steel  con- 
structions. It  is  our  duty  to  hold  up  educational  theory 
and  to  give  it  material  and  tangible  illustration,  and  to 
be  in  the  vanguard  with  our  enthusiasm  and  our  charity, 
seeking  to  broaden  the  domains  of  man.  It  is  all  truth 


83 


we  must  seek,  and  of  such  the  Holiest  has  declared,  "Ye 
shall  know  the  truth  and  the  truth  shall  make  you  free." 

"It  is  the  duty  of  the  Colleges,"  says  Dr.  Stryker, 
"to  make  iron  into  steel  and  of  the  Universities  to  make 
steel  into  tools.  Specialization  which  is  not  based  on 
culture  attempts  to  put  an  edge  on  pot  iron."  And 
there  is  a  truth  there  applicable  to  every  growing  man, 
no  matter  how  gray  his  hairs  or  what  the  number  of  his 
years.  The  intelligent  mind  is  always  suffering  a  pud- 
dling process.  It  is  never  too  late  to  burn  out  impurities 
from  any  of  us,  never  too  late  to  add  to  our  stock,  quali- 
ties which  make  us,  in  some  sort,  more  valuable  and  more 
serviceable. 

By  keeping  this  truth  in  view  we  shall  best  broaden 
the  foundation  of  our  College;  we  shall  better  the  char- 
acter of  our  work ;  we  shall  produce  men  and  women  of 
purer  and  keener  intellectual  fibre,  who  will  do  us  credit ; 
we  shall  keep  a  solid  hold  on  our  graduates ;  we  shall  add 
to  the  reputation  of  an  institution  which  has  been  founded 
by  the  beneficence  of  the  general  government;  we  shall 
give  to  it  such  a  character  as  will  leave  it  no  longer  a 
pensioner  of  the  state,  but  a  stalwart  child,  or  man  rather, 
on  whom  the  state  will  be  eager  to  bestow  its  beneficence. 
Address  at  the  first  Initiation  Service  of  Phi  Kappa 
Phi,  June  12,  1900. 


84 


IV.     VALUES   INHERENT   TO   FRIENDSHIP 

Friendships  play  so  prominent  a  part  in  our  lives 
that  they  should  more  frequently  be  the  subject  of  our 
careful  consideration.  By  friendships  are  not  meant  mere 
passing  kindness,  good  manners,  which  it  is  daily  in  our 
power  to  render  to  some  one ;  nor  does  the  term  include 
certain  temporary  relationships  which,  while  they  call  for 
something  more  than  passing  kindness,  do  not  and  need 
not  develop  into  the  permanence  of  friendships.  In  our 
professions  and  callings  in  life,  we  are  thrown  into  re- 
lations with  others,  more  or  less  permanent,  and  though 
such  relations  are  known  and  felt  to  be  kindly  and  even 
friendly,  yet  they  do  not  develop  into  the  stature  of 
friendships.  Two  men  might  be  on  the  teaching  force 
of  this  College  for  ten  years  and  be  kind  and  friendly  in 
all  their  relations,  but  if  circumstances  should  call  either 
of  them  away,  there  might  never  thereafter  be  any  cor- 
respondence or  contact  of  any  sort  between  them,  and 
that  would  prove  they  had  been  something  less  than 
friends.  Nor  are  our  friendships  a  mere  sentiment,  a 
thing  with  fictitious  foundation,  bred  perhaps  by  the 
reading  of  romance,  intended  to  correspond  in  theory  to 
something  we  have  heard  or  read  of.  Our  friendships 
are,  if  they  are  anything,  real,  and  they  deal  with  realities. 
Our  blood  relationships  are  not  to  be  included,  for  over 
them  we  have  no  choice  and  they  do  not  furnish  such  op- 
portunity for  development  of  our  higher  natures  as  are 
furnished  by  what  we  dignify  with  the  title  friendships. 

Real  friendships  are  those  mutual  likings  that  spring 
up  between  persons,  whether  of  similar  or  dissimilar 
tastes,  likings  that  move  each  to  seek  the  society  of  the 
other.  Picture  a  scene  on  the  Swiss  lakes,  the  deck  of 


85 


a  steamer  crossing  the  lake.  On  one  side  a  group  of 
four,  on  the  other  a  group  of  five.  In  the  latter  group, 
a  young  Harvard  student,  nervous  and  restless,  evidently 
attracted  by  the  young  man  in  the  other  group.  He 
finally  steps  across  and  makes  acquaintance  with  John 
Ruskin,  the  great  art  critic.  Ruskin  says  of  the  meet- 
ing: "Here  I  found  my  second  friend,  my  first  real 
tutor,  Charles  Eliot  Norton." 

The  cause  for  such  a  sudden  and  electric  thrill  of 
friendship  is  a  beautiful  secret,  as  yet  undiscovered. 
That  two  athletic  young  men,  like  David  and  Jonathan, 
meeting  perhaps  for  the  first  time,  should  strike  a  friend- 
ship never  to  be  weakened  or  broken;  friendship  that 
caused  the  magnanimous  Jonathan  there  and  then  to  re- 
sign all  his  rights  to  a  crown,  is  indeed  a  mystery.  Had 
either  been  other  than  what  he  was,  such  conduct  would 
have  bordered  close  upon  sentimentality.  But  each  be- 
ing what  he  was,  we  have  in  them  the  finest  example  of 
human  friendship,  for  each  had  the  proportions  of  a  king. 

I  would  not  have  you  think  that  my  definition  of 
friendship  is  pitched  on  too  high  a  key,  or  is  too  select. 
When  I  recount  such  illustrious  cases  as  Damon  and 
Pythias,  Achilles  and  Patroclus,  Jesus  and  John, 
Bishop  Fisher  and  Sir  Thomas  More,  Boswell  and 
Samuel  Johnson,  you  say,  from  your  inmost  hearts : 
"Yes,  that  is  freindship ;  such  is  the  way  men  should  live ; 
joying  in  each  other's  successes,  in  each  other's  gifts,  HI 
each  other's  humanity,  glad  to  sacrifice  where  sacrifice 
is  possible,  open  to  criticism,  eager  for  all  that  is  most 
excellent."  And  there  are  millions  of  friendships,  un- 
seen and  unconspicuous  which  daily  reach  these  stand- 
ards. For  the  fact  that  men  of  wealth  and  talent  are 
brought  into  such  noble  relationshio  with  each  other,  a 


86 


relationship  which  the  world  cannot  fail  to  see,  because 
they  are  what  they  are,  need  not  blind  our  eyes  to  the 
fact  that,  daily,  among  the  poor  and  the  unknown  also 
are  examples  of  the  purest  friendship,  equally  well- 
pleasing  in  the  sight  of  God  and  equally  available  for  all 
the  noblest  purposes  of  manhood  and  womanhood. 

Look  at  any  great  life  and  in  what  does  its  richness 
and  splendor  consist?  In  its  friendships.  The  life  of  a 
hermit  cannot  be  as  interesting  as  the  life  of  some  man 
who  has  been  much  among  men.  And  a  man  may  be 
much  among  men  and  yet  may  lack  the  capacity  for 
friendship. 

I  think  this  moment  of  two  men.  One  touched  mil- 
lions, with  the  intent  to  do  them  good.  But  his  sympa- 
thies spread  over  too  large  a  space.  His  ideals  took  al- 
most everything  out  of  our  poor  humanity,  and  though 
he  was  a  preacher,  and  a  very  great  preacher,  yet  he  had 
very  few  friends.  The  latter  did  not  touch  one  man 
where  the  former  touched  ten  thousand.  But  the  latter, 
although  he  touched  a  comparative  few  only,  touched 
them  as  personal  friends,  touched  them  with  a  purpose, 
touched  them  on  all  sides  of  their  nature,  and  not  merely 
on  one  side.  One  of  these  men  studiously  sought  few  or 
no  associations  outside  of  his  own  profession,  the  min- 
istry. The  other  was  intimate  with  the  members  of  the 
nobility,  with  church  dignitaries,  with  statesmen,  law- 
yers, physicians,  professors,  dramatists,  artists  and  musi- 
cians. Hence  every  page  of  the  Life  of  Samuel  Johnson 
throws  a  white  light  on  true  friendship;  friendships  that 
were  frank  enough  to  speak  out  their  differences ;  friend- 
ships that  could  quarrel  occasionally  and  yet  make  up 
again ;  friendships  that  did  not  taboo  a  man  because  of 
some  human  failings. 

87 


The  student  in  college  is  furnished  with  opportuni- 
ties for  friendship  such  as  are  offered  nowhere  else  in 
life.  Rivalry  enough  there  certainly  is  in  the  world  out- 
side; envy  enough,  defamation  enough  among  all  trades 
and  professions,  but  with  a  few  insignificant  exceptions, 
your  life  here  is  free  from  all  such  rivalries  and  there 
are  broad  and  ample  occasions  to  let  the  heart  seek  such 
associations  as  it  will.  During  a  four  years'  course,  you 
are  thrown  in  contact  with  seven  classes,  with  hundreds 
of  other  young  persons  your  equals  in  age,  with  the  lives 
of  all  of  these  a  little,  with  the  lives  of  a  score  of  them 
still  more,  and  with  a  chosen  few  still  more  and  more 
completely  are  you  brought  into  the  most  intimate  touch. 

What  is  it  that  men  recall  who  return  to  us  here 
after  the  lapse  of  months?  Certainly  it  is  not  their 
studies.  I  have  seldom  known  the  most  scholarly  men 
to  revert  to  those  things.  They  have  forgotten  their 
studies  as  fully  as  they  have  forgotten  the  dinners  they 
then  ate  or  the  shoes  they  wore.  But  when  they  give  you 
the  warm  grasp  of  the  hand  and  look  at  you  with  an  eye 
that  kindles  and  burns,  you  know  there  is  one  thing  they 
have  not  forgotten — their  friendship. 

And  that  is  one  way  in  which,  in  the  long  run,  we 
men  get  our  pay  for  service  rendered.  An  undergradu- 
ate is  not  always  as  loyal  as  he  might  be.  He  thinks 
that  you  are  trying  to  crowd  him.  He  is  always,  or  al- 
most always,  "against  the  faculty ;"  but  it  is  not  so  when 
he  returns  as  an  alumnus.  Time  has  invariably  burned 
out  the  dross  of  other  thoughts  and  now  the  thought 
stands  strong  and  conspicuous  in  his  mind  that,  after 
all,  you  were  his  friends. 

And  the  charm  of  all  the  colleges  located  in  the 
country  and  not  in  the  city  lies  in  the  close  friendships 

88 


which  they  make  possible.  We  can  each  of  us  easily  re- 
count the  many  advantages  that  come  from  a  city  loca- 
tion. Those  advantages  are  usually  stated  at  more  than 
they  are  really  worth.  In  the  city  furthermore  are  the 
undeniable  disadvantages,  of  crowding,  hurry,  and  dis- 
trust. 

There  is  something,  too,  in  the  very  atmosphere  of  a 
public  school  or  college — provided  it  be  not  too  large — 
which  brings  out  the  elements  of  friendship  in  men. 
Home  does  not  develop  them.  Mother,  father,  sister, 
brother,  none  of  them  is  able  to  thaw  out  certain  secrets, 
certain  shynesses,  certain  weaknesses.  But  a  man  is 
not  in  college  a  week  or  a  month  before  the  avenues  of 
his  heart  have  become  open  thoroughfares  to  somebody. 
He  has  unbosomed  himself  in  some  things  to  one  friend, 
in  others  to  another,  and  by  doing  so  has  taken  in  a 
feature  of  his  education  which  no  department  of  the  col- 
lege could  supply,  which  perhaps  is  of  more  value  than 
what  he  will  get  out  of  all  its  departments  combined. 

True  friendships  arise  out  of  a  mutual  conviction 
of  excellence  or  worth  of  some  sort.  What  caused  the 
thrill  of  friendship  between  these  two  Hebrews?  Here 
was  Jonathan,  not  far  from  thirty,  fully  six  feet  in  height 
and  large  in  proportion — a  fine  presence  as  he  stood  there 
encased  in  royal  armor.  He  was  as  valiant  with  the  bow 
as  his  father  with  the  sword.  Many  a  time  already  had 
his  armor  been  crimsoned  with  human  blood  while  fight- 
ing the  Philistines,  the  enemies  of  God.  He  was  strong, 
valiant,  daring,  filial,  devout.  David  knew  all  this  of 
Jonathan.  On  the  other  hand  there  was  David,  not  much 
over  twenty,  standing  there  with  a  sling  in  one  hand  and 
the  dripping  head  of  Goliath  in  the  other.  Dressed  as  a 
shepherd,  not  a  soldier,  he  had  come  on  a  brief  visit  to 


camp  to  see  his  brothers  who  were  fighting  in  King 
Saul's  army.  In  stature  he  was  by  no  means  so  com- 
manding as  Jonathan,  but  he  was  equally  fearless, 
equally  daring,  equally  devout. 

Here  then  was  the  primary  and  main  reason  for  this 
sudden  friendship.  Jonathan  may  have  thought: 
"Here  is  a  young  fellow,  every  inch  a  soldier,  worthy 
to  be  honored  infinitely  more  than  I  who  am  a  king's 
son.  He  has  done  a  deed  I  dared  not  have  done — killed 
this  champion,  the  dread  of  our  armies/'  It  is  with 
some  such  feelings  that  Jonathan  began  to  love  David  as 
his  own  soul.  It  was  under  such  convictions  that "  Jona- 
than stripped  himself  of  his  robe  that  was  upon  him, 
and  gave  it  to  David  and  his  garments,  even  to  his 
sword,  his  bow,  and  his  girdle." 

And  every  friendship  of  life,  that  is  worth  calling 
such,  starts  in  that  way.  You  are  not  drawn  to  a  man 
who  is  a  nobody,  who  has  not  in  him  some  promise,  some 
worth,  some  talent,  which  elicits  your  admiration,  and 
makes  you  aspire  to  his  acquaintance.  Understand  me, 
I  do  not  mean  gifts  or  excellences  which  you  think  are 
going  to  profit  you.  Such  things  do  not  enter  into  the 
thoughts  of  real  friends. 

If  what  has  been  said  is  true  then  bad  men,  men 
with  low  and  mean  ambitions,  cannot  be  friends.  Men 
who  lead  each  other  into  sin  and  crime  are  acting  on 
principles  which  are  too  shaky  to  bear  the  noble  super- 
structure of  friendship.  The  friendship  of  David  and 
Jonathan  sprang,  at  once  and  full  grown,  out  of  their 
loyalty  to  Israel  and  their  fidelity  to  the  Almighty.  The 
one  was  a  king's  son,  and  yet  charmed  to  acknowledge  in 
the  other,  who  was  but  a  shepherd  lad,  a  greater  power 
of  friendship  than  he  himself  possessed.  Jonathan  did 


90 


not  neglect  his  father  nor  his  father's  cause.  He  died  at 
his  father's  side  in  the  great  battle  on  Mt.  Gilboa  seven 
or  eight  years  later.  During  those  years  David  had  been 
driven  to  live  as  a  freebooter.  King  Saul  with  insane 
madness  had  tried  in  every  manner  to  compass  his  death. 
Jonathan  compassionated  his  father,  but  never  for  once 
did  he  lose  sight  of  the  noble  aim  in  which  his  friendship 
and  David's  had  been  cemented — the  future  glory  of 
Israel. 

That  leads  me  to  say  that  a  true  friendship  is  re- 
markable for  the  trust  that  pervades  it.  It  is  surely  his 
own  sentiment  that  Shakespeare  put  into  the  mouth  of 
Polonius : 

"Those  friends  thou  hast,  and  their  adoption  tried, 
Grapple  them  to  thy  soul  with  hoops  of  steel." 

And  another  of  our  poets  says :  "Judge  before 
friendship,  then  confide  till  death." 

Have  you  a  few  friends  in  the  world,  say  half  a 
dozen?  If  you  have  deliberately  chosen  them  as  your 
friends,  or  if  circumstances  have  gradually  brought  you 
and  them  into  close  and  confiding  relations,  then  your 
confidence  in  them  should  remain  unshaken.  The  confi- 
dence that  you  have  built  upon  them  demands  that.  There 
is  a  cry  that  comes  from  within  our  nature  which  seems  to 
say :  "Do  not  treat  them  also  as  traitors.  Do  not  throw 
your  friends  too  overboard.  Let  it  be  known  that  there  is  a 
handful  at  least  of  your  fellow  creatures  in  whom  you 
confide  with  unshaken  firmness."  The  few  friends  of 
our  choice  are  a  sort  of  hostage  to  humanity.  We  have 
not  opportunity  to  pay  attention  to  all  men,  to  do  kindly 
offices  to  all  men,  to  give  unfailing  confidence  to  all  men, 
but  if  we  can  make  ourselves  realize  the  obligation  of 


91 


doing  so  to  just  a  few  of  the  descendants  of  Adam,  we 
give  a  positive  proof  that  humanity  is  not  wholly  bad. 

Our  friendsips  are  intended,  in  part,  as  opportuni- 
ties for  the  exercise  of  charity,  as  apportunities  for  frank, 
outspoken  utterances.  Our  friends  should  be  mirrors  in 
whom  we  can  see  both  our  virtues  and  our  faults.  But 
how  can  we  see  either  if  confidence  is  lacking,  or  if  we 
shatter  the  only  medium  which  can  truely  reflect  what  we 
are? 

Friendships,  viewed  in  this  light,  have  at  once  a  re- 
ligious, a  Godward  side.  If  we  slight  our  friends  also, 
then,  pray,  whom  do  we  trust?  If  we  cannot  trust  those 
who  are  closest  to  us,  then  how  can  we  trust  any  of  God's 
creatures  ?  How  can  we  trust  ourselves  ?  Nay,  how  can 
we  trust  God  himself?  To  lose  confidence  in  his  work- 
manship is  to  lose  confidence  in  Him.  To  assert  that  no 
creature  made  in  his  image  is  worthy  of  our  trust  is  to 
call  that  image  itself  a  deceit  and  a  lie.  That  is  a  bit  of 
logic  whose  truth  none  of  us  can  deny. 

Let  us  then,  I  repeat,  for  our  own  mental  and  moral 
safety  remain  true  to  our  old  time,  our  long  chosen 
friendships,  and  let  us  as  soon  think  of  betraying  them 
as  of  denying  God  himself. 

I  have  but  a  word  or  two  more. 

People  who  look  upon  friendships  as  a  mere  matter 
of  convenience,  a  help  to  getting  on  in  the  world — such 
persons  are  least  worthy  to  have  friends,  such  persons 
would  be  least  likely  to  be  true  to  their  friends. 

These  friendships,  what  then  are  they?  What,  if 
not  God's  means  of  doing  good  in  the  world.  We  speak 
sometimes  of  the  "tender  mercies  and  the  overruling 
Providence  of  God,"  but  what  are  they  save  "the  cup  of 
cold  water  handed  to  a  needv  brother?"  How  are  we 


ever  to  do  a  deed  to  God  unless  we  do  it  for  and  among 
our  fellow  men?  Our  affections  are  so  many  alabaster 
boxes  filled  with  precious  ointment,  and  when  is  there 
worth  to  be  lavished  if  not  upon  those  who  love  us  and 
while  they  love  us? 

Or  think  of  all  the  most  noble  traits  that  have 
adorned  or  that  can  adorn  our  humanity,  and  what  are 
they :  charity,  goodness,  gentleness,  faith,  meekness  ? 
What  are  they  if  not  the  record  of  the  relationship  in 
which  we  stand  to  our  fellow-men?  And  what  other 
channels  or  means  has  God  devised  for  our  perfection  or 
the  perfection  of  our  brethern  other  than  "gentle  words 
and  kindly  deeds." 

Let  us  have  a  few  friends.  Let  us  love  them  gener- 
ously. Let  us  be  frank  to  them  and  charitable,  and  let 
us  beg  them  to  be  frank  to  us.  Such  friendships  as  that  of 
David  and  Jonathan  decide  the  future  of  kingdoms,  such 
beautiful  friendship  as  that  manifested  by  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ — why  it  makes  us  see  how  very  wonderful  a  thing 
friendship  is  and  how  through  no  other  means  has  God 
ever  intended  to  reach  and  uplift  the  world. 

Delivered  in  the  Old  Chapel,  February  17,  1901. 


V.     THE  PRECIOUSNESS  OF  THE  BIBLE 

Psalm  i  :2. 

The  arguments  why  you  should  give  the  Bible  your 
careful  consideration  are  so  many  and  so  varied  that  I 
shall  not  have  time  fully  to  develop  any  one  of  them. 
The  age  of  the  book,  the  men  who  have  written  it,  the 
characters  drawn  there,  the  truths  taught,  the  men  whose 
characters  and  careers  have  been  moulded  by  it,  the  in- 


93 


fluence  its  teachings  have  had  on  government,  literature, 
and  life — these,  and  more  of  like  nature,  are  questions 
any  one  of  which  opens  up  a  vast  field  for  thought  and 
for  discussion. 

Here  is  a  book  whose  authors  range  through  more 
than  a  thousand  years,  a  book  which  contains  at  least 
five  of  the  very  greatest  characters  known  to  history. 
These  two  points  alone  would  make  it  worthy  of  consid- 
eration. 

Let  me  ask  you  to  notice  a  few  more  specific  reasons 
for  the  study  of  this  Book  and  I  will  take  as  the  first  of 
these  the  form  in  which  it  is  published.  No  book  in 
the  world  is  issued  in  anywhere  near  such  large  numbers. 
No  book  is  published  so  expensively ;  none  at  so  low  a 
price.  More  copies  of  it  are  given  away  every  year  than 
are  published  of  any  other  book,  even  though  you  include 
the  latest  best-selling  novels. 

It  is  the  only  book  which  is  published  in  all  the  lan- 
guages, and  nearly  all  the  dialects,  of  the  earth.  There 
is  hardly  an  insignificant  tribe  in  any  African  jungle,  or 
any  poor  reminant  of  humanity  in  any  island  of  the  South 
Sea,  whose  rude  dialect  has  not  been  favored  with  the 
translation  of  a  part  at  least  of  this  book.  It  has  caused 
to  be  constructed  scores  of  written  languages  that  it 
might  publish  itself  in  them.  You  can  buy  it  in  large  size, 
finely  illustrated,  paying  for  it  scores  of  dollars  if  you 
wish,  or  you  can  procure  it  in  good  clear  type  for  less 
than  fifty  cents.  One  single  house  in  London  has,  for 
two  generations,  made  its  fortune  by  the  publication  of 
the  famous  Bagster  Polyglott  Bibles. 

My  first  point  then  is,  that  a  book  which  is  so  uni- 
versally used  and  which  is  published  in  so  many  forms 
and  at  so  many  prices  is  for  that  very  reason,  if  for  no 


94 


other,  worthy  of  our  consideration.  Therefore  to  every 
young  man  who  is  starting  out  in  life  I  would  say :  "Get 
a  good  Bible  for  yourself,  printed  on  good  paper,  with 
good  print,  and  good  binding,  good  maps,  and  good  ref- 
erences. Five  dollars  should  buy  a  very  serviceable 
Bible  of  that  description.  The  margin  of  such  a  book 
may  be  used  for  jotting  down  any  points  of  interest 
which  you  may  find  in  your  general  reading,  such  as  bear 
on  any  chapter  or  text. 

You  may  increase  your  interest  in  this  book,  second- 
ly, by  regarding  it,  not  as  one  volume  but  as  several 
volumes  of  unequal  value.  It  is  a  great,  a  very  great, 
hindrance  to  the  proper  understanding,  not  to  say  the 
proper  enjoyment  of  this  book,  to  regard  it  all  as  one 
book.  It  is  not  one  volume.  It  is  a  whole  literature. 
It  is  divided  into  two  general  parts.  In  the  first  of  these, 
there  are  thirty-nine  different  books  by  nearly  thirty  dif- 
ferent authors,  and  in  the  second  division  there  are  twen- 
ty-seven different  parts  by  as  many  as  eight  different 
authors.  Some  of  these  books  are  history,  some  are 
poetry,  some  are  impassioned  eloquence,  some  are  let- 
ters. 

But  you  may  have  been  entertaining  the  idea  that  it 
is  one  book,  that  it  is  all  equally  good  throughout,  be- 
cause it  is  all  equally  inspired.  Such  a  thought  is  mis- 
leading and  dangerous,  not  to  say  impossible.  I  might 
declare,  in  like  manner,  that  the  visible  universe  is  one 
book,  equally  inspired  throughout.  But  have  all  men  an 
equal  division  of  it  in  its  extent  and  intent,  or  can  they 
have?  Whose  telescope  has  pierced  to  creation's  out- 
most bounds?  Whose  microscope  has  fathomed  the 
limit  of  infinitesmally  little  things?  Whose  brain  has 

95 


found  the  subtle  principles  which  bind  the  innermost  and 
the  outermost  altogether  to  make  one  grand  whole? 

If  I  arranged  here  on  the  platform  forty  books  by 
different  authors,  you  would  know  what  I  meant.  Here 
they  would  be,  the  best  representatives  of  England  and 
America.  But  it  would  be  foolish  in  me  to  say:  "These 
are  all  alike  good.  They  are  all  equally  inspired.  You 
must  read  them  all.  It  is  your  duty."  We  should  ex- 
pect a  man  to  resent  such  advice  as  that.  It  would  be 
taking  his  conscience  away  from  him.  It  would  be 
stifling  his  imagination.  It  would  be  depriving  him  of 
his  judgment.  It  would  be  for  A,  B,  and  a  few  others 
to  assist  and  dictate  what  is  good  for  all  the  rest  of  the 
alphabet. 

But  what  would  the  wise  man  do  and  advise?  He 
would  pick  up  one  volume  after  another  and  ask :  have 
you  read  of  the  founding  of  Constantinople  and  the  spread 
of  Mohammedanism?  Have  you  read  the  story  of  the 
influence  of  the  English  Bible?  Milton's  description  of 
the  loneliness  of  Eden  and  of  our  first  parents?  Park- 
man's  account  of  the  taking  of  Quebec?  Motley's  de- 
scription of  the  Spanish  Armada?  But  how  foolish  the 
advice  would  be  to  ask  him  to  wade  through  all  of  Shakes- 
peare or  all  of  Gibbon. 

And  so  we  are  not  to  regard  the  authors  of  the  Bible 
as  alike  good,  alike  comprehensive,  and  alike  interesting, 
in  every  part,  or  to  every  person,  or  even  to  the  same 
person  at  all  times.  The  wise  instructor  would  say  to 
any  young  man,  "There  is  much  in  the  Bible  which  you 
will  not  like  and  which  therefore  you  need  not  read." 
Leviticus,  Chronicles  and  some  other  books  are,  in  part 
or  wholly,  dry  and  uninteresting.  The  prophets  contain 
sublime  utterances,  but  to  understand  them  one  needs  a 


96 


large  knowledge  of  history  and  years  of  experience.  Job 
is  placed  by  many  at  the  head  of  all  literature,  but  its 
greatness  looms  up  in  due  proportions  only  as  men  grow 
old  and  have  given  much  study  to  the  problem  of  living. 
Many  of  our  Lord's  words  are  mysterious  and  deep. 
One  of  his  fellow  apostles  declared  that  Paul's  letters 
contained  many  things  hard  to  be  understood. 

I  have  dwelt  on  this  point  a  little  longer  than  I  had 
intended.  Allow  me  a  homely  illustration  in  closing. 
When  a  farmer  turns  out  his  cattle  to  graze,  even  on  the 
darkest  night,  he  does  not  need  to  hang  lanterns  on  their 
horns  to  enable  them  to  pick  out  the  herbage  which  is 
good  for  them.  He  does  not  need  to  go  over  the  ground 
and  cut  down  beforehand  everything  that  is  not  grass. 
They  know  by  an  instinct  within  them  what  is  good  for 
them.  And  so  with  the  Bible.  If  a  man  will  but  open 
it — and  that  is  the  main  point — if  he  will  open  it,  he  will 
find  what  attracts  and  what  is  helpful  to  him,  much  bet- 
ter than  any  one  else  can  find  it  for  him. 

The  Bible  should  be  looked  at,  for  the  most  part,  as 
a  series  of  biographies,  a  series  of  lives  and  letters,  and 
not  as  a  compilation  of  opinions  and  theology. 

I  think  that  if  this  book  were  divided  into  different 
parts,  and  the  several  parts  were  bound  according  to  their 
authors,  that,  even  then,  the  average  librarian  or  min- 
ister would  put  these  volumes  right  in  with  theology 
rather  than  with  history,  poetry,  etc.,  where  they  really 
belong.  Moses,  Samuel,  Isaiah,  Paul,  why  they — with- 
out doubt — must  go  with  Augustine,  and  Calvin,  with 
Luther,  and  Wesley.  No  classification  could  be  more  in- 
consistent and  misleading.  Where  do  the  works  of 
Moses  belong  but  with  works  of  history  ?  Where  should 
Job  and  the  Psalms  be  put?  On  the  shelves  with  Virgil, 

97 


Dante,  and  Milton.  And  so  the  Proverbs  should  be  put 
with  the  essayists  and  practical  philosophers,  with  Mon- 
taigne, Bacon,  Carlyle,  and  Emerson.  The  prophets 
should  be  shelved  with  orators  and  statesmen.  The  let- 
ters of  Paul,  James,  etc.,  should  stand  right  along  side  of 
Cicero's  and  Pliny's  letters.  In  other  words,  what  is  a 
record  of  life  and  facts  should  not  be  put  alongside  of 
what  is  mere  discussion  and  passing  opinion.  Do  not  put 
what  has  gushed  from  the  soul  as  naturally  as  water  from 
a  spring,  what  is  sweet,  wholesome,  and  life-giving,  with 
what  is  often  the  offspring  of  hatred,  the  very  marah  of 
bitterness  and  controversy. 

There  is  an  immense  gain  in  treating  the  Bible  as 
biography.  As  another  has  said,  "It  is  the  great  lesson 
of  biography  to  teach  what  man  can  be  and  can  do  at  his 
best.  It  may  thus  give  each  man  renewed  strength  and 
confidence." 

These  brothers  of  ours,  who  live  in  universal  life, 
still  speak  to  us  from  their  graves  and  beckon  us  in  the 
paths  which  they  have  trod.  And  at  the  head  of  the  bio- 
graphies stands  the  Bible.  And  what  is  it  but  a  series 
of  lives  of  great  heroes,  of  patriarchs,  prophets,  kings, 
and  judges,  culminating  in  the  greatest  life  of  all — that 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  ?  How  many  of  the  very  great- 
est lives  have  drawn  all  their  strength  from  the  examples 
of  holy  men  recorded  here!  What  Moses  accomplished 
was  for  generations  the  inspiration  of  his  race  and  is  still. 
It  was  the  life  and  legislation  of  Moses  which  kindled  the 
ardor  of  David  and  gave  their  glow  of  life  and  love  to 
the  Psalms.  It  was  with  David  that  Isaiah  lighted  a 
torch  of  a  purer  and  holier  fire.  Jesus,  our  Lord,  deemed 
it  not  beneath  him  to  draw  his  spiritual  life  and  inspira- 
tion from  these  his  predecessors.  And  so  absorbed  was 

98 


Paul  in  one  biography  that  he  determined  to  forego  all 
the  unexampled  training  he  had  had  in  religion  and  phi- 
losophy and  to  know  nothing  save  Jesus  Christ — and  Him 
crucified. 

I  say  therefore  again,  learn  to  read  this  book  as~real 
biography.  Read  the  sketches  of  Joseph,  Moses,  Samuel, 
and  David.  Read  the  doings  and  the  sayings  of  Jesus, 
and  Paul,  and  Peter.  They  are  not  long,  they  are  not 
tedious.  Think  of  the  whole  life  of  Jesus  Christ  being 
contained  in  a  few  pages  of  a  book  as  small  as  this ! 

There  is  another  point:  We  should  learn  to  read 
other  history  in  the  light  of  the  Bible.  With  the 
Bible  in  our  hand,  we  can  best  understand  and  fath- 
om ancient  history  in  particular,  though,  in  reality, 
modern  history  as  well.  You  and  I  know  well,  that  back 
there  in  the  valleys  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Nile,  civi- 
lizations and  races  have  been  extinguished. 

If  we  read  the  Bible,  we  shall  learn  why.  There  is 
hardly  a  hill  slope  more  or  less  remote  from  the  waters 
of  the  Mediterranean  which  does  not  present  to  the  view 
some  important  ruin.  There  is  a  city  in  ruins  and  above 
it  is  an  object  the  most  sad  among  relics  of  antiquity. 
Within  that  temple,  now  in  ruins,  for  generations,  a 
crowding  city  of  people,  vastly  superior  in  their  intelli- 
gence, offered  their  worship  to  a  goddess  whose  influence 
was  as  extended  in  those  earlier  days,  through  all  those 
seas,  as  is  the  influence  of  Christ  in  this  later  time.  But 
goddess  and  temple,  city  and  worshipers  are  gone  into 
oblivion.  Read  the  Bible  and  you  will  learn  why.  Rome 
ruled  the  world  for  a  thousand  years  and  had  come  to 
boast  of  her  rule  as  eternally  secure.  But  the  New  Testa- 
ment will  tell  you  why  a  revolution  came,  sudden, 
sweeping,  permanent.  And  if  you  want  to  find  why  na- 


tions  now  do  not  succeed,  why  parties  and  men  are 
doomed  and  damned,  why  an  individual  reputation  and 
character  shrivels  all  up  to  shame  and  nothingness,  some- 
times within  a  few  brief  days,  all  you  need  to  do  is  to 
go  to  the  Bible  and  you  will  find  an  answer. 

In  other  words,  history  past  and  present,  can  be  read 
best  and  interpreted  best  by  the  standards,  of  life  or  of 
precept  which  are  written  in  this  book.  Within  as 
small  a  compass,  there  is  no  source  from  which  you  can 
draw  so  full  and  complete  an  understanding  of  the  history 
and  the  customs,  the  habits  and  personal  daily  intercourse 
of  the  peoples  of  Assyria,  Babylonia,  Persia,  Greece,  and 
Rome.  Daily,  individual  intercourse  of  men  with  each 
other  in  city,  town,  village  and  country,  with  their  faults, 
foibles,  and  virtues  are  here  drawn  with  the  utmost  sim- 
plicity and  skill,  a  skill  and  insight  so  complete  that  we 
declare  it  of  divine  inspiration. 

One  point  more  and  I  am  done.  The  Bible  is  a 
book  which  is  being  constantly  illustrated  by  other  books. 
Using  it  as  a  nucleus  therefore  we  get  a  broad  and  sensi- 
ble introduction  to  many  other  books. 

Walter  Scott  was  a  man  saturated  in  history  and  in 
the  customs  of  varied  peoples  and  periods,  a  man  who 
wrote  works  of  fiction  and  history  sufficient  of  themselves 
to  make  a  respectably  large  library,  and  these  are  his 
words  in  regard  to  this  greatest  of  books:  "The  most 
learned,  acute,  and  diligent  student,  cannot,  in  the  long- 
est life,  obtain  an  entire  knowledge  of  this  one  volume. 
The  more  deeply  he  works  the  mine  the  more  rich  and 
abundant  he  finds  the  ore.  New  light  continually  beams 
from  the  source  of  heavenly  knowledge  to  direct  the  con- 
duct, and  to  illustrate  the  works  of  God  and  the  ways  of 
men;  and  he  will,  at  least,  leave  the  world  confessing 

100 


that  the  more  he  studied  the  Scriptures,  the  fuller  the 
convictions  he  had  of  his  own  ignorance  and  of  their  in- 
estimable value." 

And  to  scores  of  men,  the  holy  will  of  God  has  been 
in  all  ages  such  a  source  of  interest  and  comfort  that  no 
words  could  tell  it  fully.  May  it  be  ours  with  growing 
interest  to  seek  and  to  find  these  hidden  treasures — more 
precious,  as  the  psalmist  declares,  than  honey  and  the 
honey-comb. 

Delivered  in  the  Old  Chapel,  October  27,  1901. 


VI.     HOW  TO  SPEND  MY  SUNDAYS 

"How  should  I  spend  my  Sundays?"  On  this  ques- 
tion people  are  divided  at  once  into  two  hostile  camps. 
That  is  because  they  regard  this  a  religious  question, 
when  it  is  not  such  primarily.  One  party  is  afraid  of 
losing  the  holy  sanctities  which  have  come  to  associate 
themselves  with  Sunday,  the  other  party  of  losing  the 
pleasures  for  which  Sunday  offers  an  open  door.  This  is 
really  a  matter  of  business,  one  that  concerns  our  inter- 
est, and  our  highest  interest. 

Anyhow,  Sunday  is  here ;  it  is  legalized  over  all  the 
civilized  world,  so  that  we  need  not  raise  the  question 
where  or  when  it  originated.  It  is  a  solidly  fixed  affair.  In 
the  great  French  upheaval  of  the  eighteenth  century,  al- 
most all  institutions  and  customs  were  overturned.  But  the 
attempt  to  change  the  day  of  rest  to  the  tenth  day  rather 
than  the  seventh  proved  impossible.  In  other  words,  the 
law  of  rest  on  the  seventh  day  seems  as  indispensable  as 
one  of  the  great  national  laws. 

101 


It  is  well  to  notice  this,  that  in  our  Sundays,  we  are 
allowed  fourteen  per  cent,  of  all  our  time.  On  that  day 
our  usual  employments  make  no  demands  upon  us.  No 
master  compels  us  to  work.  We  are  under  no  task- 
master. On  the  first  day  of  the  week  a  man  is  his  own 
master.  He  is  lord  of  himself.  He  may  do  what  he  will 
with  that  day — which  is  his  own. 

It  is  really  the  only  day  when  manhood  and  person- 
ality come  to  the  top.  On  other  days  people  stand  in  his 
light.  Burdens,  enmities,  bickerings  make  it  impossible 
for  him  to  see  properly  either  his  neighbor  or  himself. 
He  is  twisted  out  of  his  normal  nature  and  course.  His 
associations  carry  him  outside  of  himself.  He  has  hard- 
ly time  to  inquire  into  his  own  motives,  or  to  judge  prop- 
erly the  motives  of  other  men.  But  on  Sundays  the 
rush  of  associations  stops.  The  connection  with  the 
whirl  of  life  is  severed.  Wheels  do  not  buzz  in  the 
man's  ears.  Get  him  cleaned  up  and  in  his  Sunday  suit, 
and  his  personality,  his  real  self,  stands  out — a  thing  to 
be  proud  of. 

All  this  is  true,  as  I  have  said,  during  fourteen  per 
cent,  of  the  man's  time.  This  is  a  good  bit,  when  you 
think  it  over.  It  is  seven  and  one  half  weeks'  vacation 
in  every  year.  It  is  three  solid  years  in  every  twenty- 
one,  ten  years  in  seventy.  This  is  a  good  deal  of  time; 
how  shall  a  man  hallow  it? 

Let  us  suppose  that,  at  twenty-one,  one  of  you  is 
taken  into  a  business  at  a  thousand  dollars,  gradually  to 
be  several  thousand  dollars,  a  year.  Let  it  be  an  essen- 
tial part  of  the  contract  that  you  are  to  reserve  fourteen 
per  cent,  of  your  salary,  that  money  not  to  be  used  for 
board,  lodging,  clothing,  or  for  any  of  the  necessities  of 
life,  but  to  be  spent  for  your  personal  betterment — for 

102 


entertainments,  works  of  art,  foreign  travel,  books.  You 
see  that  every  few  years  you  could  make  an  extended 
trip  abroad,  or  could  add  to  your  library  every  year  a 
hundred  volumes  or  more  of  the  best  books,  or  could 
gradually  adorn  your  walls  with  works  of  art,  your  room 
with  things  that  would  show  your  good  taste. 

That  fourteen  per  cent,  of  your  income  would  be- 
come gradually  a  splendid  test  of  you,  as  a  growing,  in- 
telligent man.  It  would  gradually  bring  out  whatever 
of  refinement  and  higher  qualities  there  might  be  in  you. 

The  other  eighty-six  per  cent,  would  go  for  things 
scarcely  under  your  control.  It  would  be  spent  for 
things  in  which  others  would  have  some  rights  and  some 
say.  But  the  fourteen  per  cent,  would  become,  in  the 
end,  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  you  personally.  If  spent 
properly  and  for  the  best  things,  it  would,  before  you 
were  sixty,  have  gained  you  a  certain  amount  of  advanced 
culture,  a  certain  high  grade  of  friendships  and  associa- 
tions, which  would  gradually  make  your  personality  con- 
spicuous, and  your  service  to  be  sought  after. 

Now  our  Sundays  we  are  forced  to  look  upon  in 
just  that  light.  They  are  valuable  percentage  of  time, 
forced  upon  us,  for  our  own  disposal,  time  that  cannot 
be  used  as  the  other  six  days  are  used.  Perhaps  I  ought 
not  to  say  cannot,  for  I  saw  a  man  making  hay  on  Sun- 
day last  summer  within  the  limits  of  the  city  of  Boston. 

The  first  point  I  would  dwell  upon  is  the  Nature  01 
Sunday  rest.  I  will  not  define  it  at  the  outset  lest  you 
disagree  with  me,  but  I  will  lead  up  to  it.  We  ought 
surely  to  agree  on  this,  that  how  to  rest  and  how  much 
to  rest  are  questions  which  constantly  call  for  an  answer. 
The  effectual  rest  which  a  man  gets  is  the  thing  which 
gives  him  renewed  working  power. 


103 


It  is  worth  our  notice  that  even  the  day  laborer  at 
present  is  working  only  twenty-eight  per  cent,  of  his  time 
—a  little  more  than  one-fourth.  But  it  is  plainly  evident 
that  a  professional  man,  whose  hours  of  compelled  labor 
are  less,  has  all  he  can  do  to  keep  up  with  the  pressure 
that  is  put  upon  him.  It  would  seem  as  though,  with 
twenty-eight  per  cent,  of  labor  and  seventy-two  per- 
cent, of  rest,  a  man  ought  not  to  fall  behind  in  working 
capacity.  And  yet  men  are  falling  behind.  The  age  is 
overworked.  More  men  than  ever  are  breaking  down 
under  strain.  There  is  with  every  year  a  greater  pro- 
portion of  the  population  in  the  insane  retreats.  There 
are  more  nervous  people,  more  nervous  diseases,  more 
special  remedies  for  such  diseases. 

The  question  of  how  to  rest,  then,  is  a  more  and  more 
pressing  one.  Occupations  of  all  sorts  call  for  all  there 
is  in  a  man  and  when  the  work  of  the  day  is  done  reac- 
tion comes,  a  reaction  which  brings  the  rest  of  sleep.  The 
man  falls  into  unconsciousness.  His  powers  are  relaxed. 
They  are,  in  a  sense,  taken  entirely  out  of  his  control. 
A  sort  of  death  seizes  him.  But  during  the  working  of 
this  silent  mystery,  nature  almost  wholly  regains  her  lost 
energies.  Sleep  is  a  sort  of  rest  which  even  the  slave 
and  the  draft  animal  cannot  be  denied.  Mother  nature 
rocks  all  her  children  daily  in  her  quiet  cradle  and  in  that 
way  cures  the  greater  part  of  the  cares  and  sorrows  of 
the  world.  That  is  one  kind  of  rest,  a  rest  where  the  will 
is  set  free,  and  the  whole  being  drifts  upon  the  sea  of  un- 
consciousness. 

But  that  is  not  the  nature  of  Sunday  rest.  Sleeping 
all,  or  most  of  the  day,  Sunday,  or  even  lying  abed  late 
Sunday  is  not  restful.  Sauntering  one's  time  away  in 
fields  or  woods  on  Sundays — I  mean,  of  course,  habit- 


104 


ually — is  not  restful.  Dawdling  the  day  away  in  aim- 
lessness  is  not  restful.  A  Sunday  turned  into  sport,  or 
visiting,  or  hunting,  or  idleness,  is  not  the  most  restful 
way  of  spending  one's  time.  I  have  no  question  that,  if 
the  indifference  to  religion,  the  causes  of  the  criminality, 
and  shiftless  idleness  that  exist  among  us,  could  be  traced 
out,  a  large  proportion  of  them  could  be  laid  at  the  doors 
of  men's  Sundays  and  the  way  they  have  spent  these  Sun- 
days. 

Men  fall  into  a  loaferish  habit  on  Sundays  and  breed 
thus  a  loaferish  habit  for  the  other  six  days,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  open  sins  and  low  companionships  into  which  they 
are  likely  to  fall.  There  seems  to  be  a  false  idea — and  it 
is  a  very  dangerous  one — that  a  man  is  justified  in  doing 
nothing  at  all  on  Sunday.  But  I  know  from  personal  ex- 
perience that  that  is  a  kind  of  rest  which  will,  in  the  end, 
kill  a  man's  capacity  for  the  best  work.  You  will  find, 
in  the  case  of  any  man  who  rests  on  Sunday  after  that 
fashion,  that  you  have  neither  a  great  man,  nor  a  good 
man,  nor  a  growing  man. 

Sunday  rest  is  conscious  rest ;  rest  that  is  taken  with 
the  eyes  wide  open ;  rest  from  the  usual  occupations  of 
the  six  days — so  far  as  such  rest  is  possible.  It  is — or 
should  be — a  clean  and  clear-cut  contrast  to  what  is 
thought  or  done  on  any  other  day.  That  is  Sunday  rest. 
It  is  a  thing  to  be  looked  forward  to  with  positive  pleas- 
ure, for  this  reason  if  for  no  other,  because  it  is  a  strik- 
ing contrast  to  the  other  six  days. 

The  intelligent — and  mind  I  do  not  say  the  religious 
or  the  Christian — the  intelligent  man  should  say  to  him- 
self:  "I  will,  so  far  as  possible,  rest  from  every  occupa- 
tion, even  the  most  trival,  of  the  six  days."  If  a  lawyer, 
let  him  vow  not  to  read  on  that  day  in  the  daily  routine 

105 


of  his  profession.  The  same  if  a  physician,  or  teacher, 
engineer,  or  preacher.  Let  him  vow  that  none  of  the 
things  which  he  is  engaged  in  studying  or  in  investigat- 
ing on  the  six  days  shall  find  a  place  on  the  seventh  day, 
but  shall  be  utterly  laid  aside. 

This  is  not  a  plea  for  the  Puritan  Sunday ;  it  is  not 
even  a  plea  for  a  religious  Sunday.  It  is  a  plea  for  a 
restful  Sunday.  It  draws  a  line  of  demarcation  between 
this  day  and  every  other  day,  by  shutting  the  door  on  all 
the  thousand  and  one  things  which  make  the  six  days 
such  a  babel.  It  is  the  rest  of  entire  change  not  of  un- 
consciousness, or  of  idleness.  It  can  be  taken  in  the 
crowded  city  just  as  well  as  in  the  country,  because  it  is 
an  inner  rest — a  kind  of  rest  that  the  man  has  made  room 
for  within  himself.  It  is  not  the  rest  where  activity 
either  stops  or  slacks  up,  but  where  it  develops  itself  into 
something  entirely  different.  And  we  all  know  that  an 
entire  change  of  employment  and  thought  is,  frequently, 
the  most  welcome  kind  of  rest ;  even  more  welcome  than 
entire  cessation  from  work. 

Sunday,  properly  spent,  should  be  a  day  of  spiritual 
vision,  a  day  of  spiritual  repairs.  I  can  easily  imagine 
you  saying  that  these  remarks  have  carted  every  thing 
out  of  Sunday,  they  have  left  nothing  remaining  in  it. 
Suppose  for  the  moment  that  that  were  so  and  that  I 
should  not  further  specify  one  single  thing  in  which  mind 
or  heart  should  be  employed  on  Sunday,  would  it  not  be 
enough  merely  to  be  still  for  a  few  hours  and  listen  to 
the  silent  forces  that  are  at  work  within  us;  to  listen  to 
the  soul,  if  we  have  a  soul;  to  hearken  within  ourselves 
and  ask  what  the  nature,  the  ability,  and  the  possible 
destiny  is  of  that  thing  within  us  which  we  call  personality ; 
to  ask  ourselves  of  what  good  we  are  in  the  world,  or 


106 


of  what  harm  we  are  doing  in  it;  to  ask  what  injuries 
we  are  suffering  during  the  turmoil  of  the  six  days;  to 
ask  what  the  general  trend  of  our  life  is,  whether  better 
or  worse? 

When  an  engineer  has  made  the  run  from  Harris- 
burg  to  Altoona,  his  machine  is  taken  into  the  yard.  She 
is  put  into  the  round-house.  Her  fires  are  banked ;  her 
boilers  and  machinery  inspected.  She  is  brought  back 
again,  as  far  as  is  possible,  to  her  ideal  of  perfection,  to 
nearly  the  condition  she  was  in  when  she  first  left  the 
shops.  She  is  burnished  from  pilot  to  tender.  The  en- 
gineer feels  a  silent  sense  of  her  capacity  as  she  stands 
there  at  rest,  though  not  a  single  force  within  her  is  in 
operation.  Speed  is  hidden  there.  Thousands  of  miles 
are  stored  up  in  her.  The  engineer  can  see  her  speeding 
along  the  blue  Juniata.  The  winter  snows  are  flying  be- 
fore her.  She  is  winging  her  way  under  the  showers  of 
spring  blossoms  or  the  fragrance  of  summer  woods. 
Thousands  of  happy  hearts  are  sped  by  her  to  their  des- 
tiny. Great  engine!  Source  and  cause  of  happiness 
almost  illimitable ! 

But  how  many  men  are  there  in  an  audience,  the 
average  of  whose  intelligence  is  high,  who  thus  every  day 
or  every  week  either  find  time  or  make  time  to  look  at 
the  inner  being,  the  self,  the  soul?  They  say  you  are 
preaching  if  you  ask  them  to,  or  advise  them  to.  They 
say  you  are  fanatical  or  a  dreamer,  unfit  for  this  practical 
world.  But  why  any  more  so  than  the  engineer  who 
daily  is  obliged  to  overhaul  his  machine? 

On  Sundays  a  man  may  look  at  his  soul,  that  is, 
himself,  in  that  way.  He  may  look  at  the  soul  of  man 
in  that  way.  He  cannot  do  this  so  well  when  the  forces 
of  the  soul  are  all  at  work.  From  Monday  to  Saturday 


107 


decisions  must  be  made  amid  turmoil  and  at  red  heat ;  mo- 
tives cannot  be  nicely  inquired  into  then.  The  surround- 
ings and  the  nature  of  things  cannot  be  closely  investiga- 
ted. The  activities  of  the  six  days  render  all  quiet  thought 
almost  utterly  impossible.  Those  days  give  little  or  no 
time  to  inquire  into  or  fall  back  upon  general  principles. 
Just  as,  while  running  his  train,  an  engineer  cannot 
pierce  too  nicely  into  questions  of  mechanical  engineer- 
ing ;  he  cannot  trace  all  the  reasons  of  things  as  they  are 
operating  on  this  particular  "run;"  he  only  knows  that 
he  is  not  making  time  today.  It  may  be  the  train.  It 
may  be  the  fireman.  It  may  be  the  coal.  It  may  be  the 
atmospheric  pressure.  He  cannot  now  tell  whether  it  is 
any  unseen  trouble  in  the  boiler  or  the  machinery.  All 
he  can  do  is  to  make  the  specific  forces  which  are  at  his 
control,  work  as  well  as  they  can  on  this  particular  run. 
When  he  comes  to  examine  his  machine,  after  her  fires 
are  out,  he  may  find  more  serious  reasons  why  she  work- 
ed today  so  much  below  her  capacity. 

Now,  it  is  just  so  with  man,  when  at  work.  Man 
engaged  in  the  business  of  the  six  days  seldom  acts  as  a 
whole  man,  seldom  acts  at  his  best,  seldom  gets  there  on 
schedule  time.  In  his  six  days'  life  man  buries,  wilfully 
or  of  necessity,  nearly  all  those  noble  forces  that  are  with- 
in him.  He  is  worldly,  selfish,  inordinately  ambitious, 
unfeeling,  unscrupulous,  and  worst  of  all  he  is  a  mean 
coward.  To  see  him  in  the  six  days  you  would  hardly 
think  he  had  any  finer  tastes,  such  as  for  literature,  art, 
or  especially  religion.  Probe  any  of  the  professions,  any 
of  the  arts  of  life,  during  the  six  days  and  you  would  say : 
"Men  are  bad ;  the  world  is  rotten." 

A  good  way,  in  fact  the  only  way,  to  cure  this  im- 
pression is  to  get  a  good  square  look  at  man,  at  yourself, 


108 


every  seven  days.  You  will  find  that  this  world  is  not 
so  bad  after  all.  The  poets  are  not  all  dead.  There  are 
still  musicians  who  sing  or  play  well,  and  architects  who 
build  well,  and  philanthropists  who  are  bearing  up  their 
fellows.  The  smoke  and  grime  of  the  cities  have  not  yet 
dimmed  the  sunsets  nor  smirched  the  flowers.  The  six 
days  would  force  you  to  believe  a  lie.  But  a  little  noble 
reading  and  quiet  meditation  on  Sunday  will  lead  you 
into  the  avenues  of  a  large  and  lovely  world.  You  will 
find  the  world  teeming  with  noble  spirits.  All  is  not 
crime ;  even  among  squalor  and  poverty  there  are  ample 
examples  of  noble  living. 

On  the  six  days  men  may  say  there  is  no  God. 
They  may  act  without  reference  to  God.  The  poor  and 
the  meek  are  crushed.  The  rich  and  the  pushing  are 
exalted.  But  a  little  quiet  Sunday  reading  and  medita- 
tion will  help  you  settle  that  question  the  other  way. 
How  came  Joseph  to  sucess,  or  Moses,  or  Jesus,  or  Paul, 
or  Luther,  or  Lincoln  ?  They  certainly  were  not  pushing 
men,  in  the  sense  you  mean.  But  who  has  now  greater 
honor?  If  you  can  find  time,  on  the  Seventh  day,  to 
look  at  some  of  these  things  calmly  and  dispassionately, 
you  will  find  yourself  wonderfully  rested  and  cheered 
and  calmed  and  balanced  in  your  every  day  estimate  of 
men. 

Let  the  seventh  day  speak  to  you  of  the  larger,  bet- 
ter soul  there  is  in  man;  of  the  soul  that  has  founded 
churches  and  schools,  that  has  endowed  universities  and 
colleges,  hospitals  and  libraries ;  let  it  tell  of  the  million- 
aire whose  wealth  has  turned  back  in  full  tide  upon  the 
general  public,  not  even  asking  a  thank  or  a  name  to 
compensate  for  its  untold  gifts.  Carnegie,  Rockefeller, 


109 


Armour,  Girard,  Cooper,  Peabody — men  are  not  wholly 
selfish. 

To  make  our  Sunday  then  a  hallowed  day  we  must 
make  it  an  affirmative  day.  We  must  build  up  the  soul 
on  the  seventh  day  even  though  we  demolish  it  the  other 
six  days.  Deny,  if  you  will,  all  good  in  man  on  other 
days,  but  on  Sunday  do  the  other  thing :  affirm  all  good 
and  seek  for  and  read  of  examples  of  it. 

There  is  no  chance  for  spiritual  vision  on  the  six 
days,  but  get  it  the  seventh  day.  There  is  no  chance  to 
stop  for  repairs  during  the  six  days,  but  do  haul  up  for 
repairs  on  the  seventh  day.  On  that  day  do  examine 
yourself  whether  you  be  in  the  faith.  Do  prove  your- 
self to  see  whether  you  are  reprobate. 

I  have  not  been  urging  religion  upon  you.  I  have 
been  urging  upon  you  only  the  matter  of  rest,  entire  rest, 
from  the  occupations  that  employ  you  all  the  week.  I 
claim  that  in  doing  so  you  will  take  up  the  work  of  the 
week  again  with  far  more  zest ;  while  in  the  Sabbath 
hours  thus  spent  you  will  be  able  to  read  and  meditate 
upon  examples  which  will  instruct  and  mould  the  life. 
You  will  see  the  soul  more  fully  and  brace  it  up  for  con- 
tact with  the  world. 

A  man  who  spends  his  Sundays  in  that  way,  will  never 
need  to  ask  whether  they  are  making  the  best  sort  of 
man  of  him.  That  question  will  answer  itself.  In  fact 
the  Sunday  was  intended  as  the  day  which  should  both 
raise  the  question  of  how  to  make  men  better  and  at  the 
same  time  should  satisfactorily  answer  it. 

The  man  who  spends  his  Sundays  so,  will  find  a 
strengthened  moral  tone.  He  will  notice  in  himself  an 
increased  religious  appetite.  He  will  notice  a  more  lofty 
and  respectable  estimate  of  his  fellow  men.  He  will  take 

110 


his  daily  work  more  cheerfully.     He  will  find  his  motives 
purified.     He  will  not  be  envious  of  his  neighbors. 

Such,  as  I  understand  it,  is  the  hallowing  of  God's 
Sabbaths;  such  are  some  of  the  results  that  will  flow 
from  it. 

Preached  in  the  Old  Chapel,  February  2,  1902. 


VII.     OLD  HOME  WEEK 

Old  Home  Week  is  an  attempt,  as  I  suppose,  to  en- 
tice home  the  scattered  and  wandering  children,  the 
branches  which  have  been  severed  from  the  old  parent 
stock.  The  family  tree,  in  many  cases,  has  been  reduced 
to  a  stump.  It  no  longer  grows  as  does  the  old  elm  in 
Squire  Merrick's  meadow;  it  is  the  source  of  indefinite 
cuttings  which  have  been  propagated  elsewhere. 

An  emigrant  habit  lies  deep  in  the  nature  of  our 
race,  or  of  our  branch  of  the  human  race.  We  are  wan- 
derers from  the  untold  past  behind  us.  None  of  us  could 
trace  back  more  than  ten  removes  before  he  would  be 
drawn  by  his  lineage  across  the  Atlantic.  We  have  all 
either  landed  at  Castle  Garden  or  come  over  in  that 
largest  of  all  ship's  companies,  the  Mayflower. 

But  milleniums  farther  back  we  were  wanderers. 
Our  forefathers  left  the  uplands  of  Asia  so  long  ago  that 
we  cannot  fix  the  date  nor  declare  the  absolute  event. 
We  know  it  solely  by  a  scant  legacy  of  words  which  still 
abide,  such  as  "father,"  "mother,"  "brother,"  "sister," 
"house."  These  testify  a  very  early  and  common  herit- 
age. By  these  we  know  that  our  fathers  settled  the 
peninsulas  of  Greece  and  Italy,  that  they  crossed  the  Alps 

ill 


and  the  Carpathians.  By  these  we  can  trace  them  to  the 
western  coast  of  Spain,  to  the  promontories  of  Brittany 
and  Normandy,  to  where  the  sun  sets  on  Iceland  and 
Wales. 

And  the  Atlantic  proved  but  a  temporary  barrier. 
As  soon  as  it  could  be  traversed  our  fathers  were  off  for 
new  worlds.  Ever  in  their  eye  there  seemed,  and  there 
still  seems,  to  be  a  fabled  "Atlantis,"  a  "garden  of  the 
Hesperides." 

The  new  world  has  fed  the  wandering  spirit.  The 
eastern  water-shed  of  what  is  now  the  United  States  en- 
ticed the  traveller  on  and  up  until  land  was  cleared  and 
peaceful  farms  were  settled  far  up  the  Kennebec,  the  Con- 
necticut, the  Hudson,  the  Susquehanna. 

Thus  was  the  great  Eastern  water-shed  surmounted 
and  all  that  spacious  country  west  of  the  Alleghenies  laid 
open  to  possession  and  enterprise.  To  the  wild  Indian  that 
great  territory  was  all  a  sealed  book.  But  what  millions 
of  wealth  are  now  annually  yielded  from  its  limitless  beds 
of  iron  and  coal  and  from  its  vast  acres  of  smiling  fields ! 
What  man  with  Aryan  or  Saxon  blood  in  his  veins  could 
remain  settled  where  such  fertility,  such  resources,  such 
scenery,  lay  open  to  his  possession  ? 

Yesterday  at  this  hour  I  was  riding  through  that  sec- 
tion of  Pennsylvania  which  was  settled  by  the  German 
refugees  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War.  A  scattered,  peeled, 
and  harried  remnant,  how  must  their  eyes  and  hearts 
have  opened  with  wonderment  and  thankfulness  as  they 
traced  the  Susquehanna,  as  they  traversed  or  skirted  its 
sublime  mountain  walls,  as  they  found  in  its  rich  deposits 
ample  support  for  generations !  No  wonder  they  became 
farmers,  a  "dumb"  people,  as  you  might  say,  with  no 
commercial  enterprise,  with  no  literary  tastes  or  aptitudes. 


But,  oh,  what  a  law-abiding  people  they  were,  and  how 
eager,  just  as  eager  indeed,  as  the  sons  of  the  Pilgrims, 
to  shed  their  blood  in  the  maintenance  of  their  liberties ! 
Their  peace  has  been  the  natural  result  of  the  horrors  they 
had  suffered  under  Tilly  and  Wallenstein.  Their  old 
habits  still  cling  to  them  and  in  many  families  the  women, 
who  are  confined  to  home,  still  speak  the  rude  German. 

But  what  is  true  of  the  Puritans  and  the  Pennsylva- 
nia Germans  is  true  of  the  descendants  of  all  those  who 
settled  on  the  shores  of  North  America.  They  are  all 
wanderers  and  the  children  of  wanderers. 

And,  what  is  more,  the  spirit  of  the  age  forces  us  to 
be  cosmopolitan.  Distances  have  been  nearly  annihilated. 
Steam  and  electricity  have  wrought  physical  wonders. 
They  have  multiplied  man's  power  at  least  a  hundredfold. 
Innumerable  centres  of  power  are  producing  force  and 
light  and  heat,  and  making  our  steel  and  textile  fabrics, 
and  the  thousand  and  one  things,  yesterday  luxuries, 
today  necessities.  In  the  depths  of  winter  the  products 
of  spring  are  at  our  doors.  We  eat,  fresh  from  the 
vineyards  and  orchards,  the  fruits  of  Sicily  or  of  Cali- 
fornia. A  man  goes  to  bed  in  New  York  at  ten  and  is 
ready  to  eat  breakfast  in  Pittsburgh  at  seven  next  morn- 
ing. Single  locomotives  haul  nearly  5000  tons.  The 
compressor  in  the  steel  works  at  Bethlehem  can  exert  a 
force  of  14000  tons. 

But  the  greater  marvel  is  the  moral  change  con- 
sequent upon  all  this.  The  opportunity  thus  to  see  more 
of  the  vast  spaces  of  the  earth  and  more  of  the  doings  of 
men  has  an  expansive  power  over  a  man's  nature.  It 
changes  the  circle  of  his  friends  and  the  tone  of  his 
morals  and  even  his  religious  beliefs.  Among  new 
friends  a  man's  faith  in  humanity  is  put  to  the  proof  and 


113 


in  my  judgment  the  nature  of  the  true  man  becomes  en- 
riched with  a  greater  love  and  a  larger  charity. 

When  he  sees  men  standing  to  their  duties  after  a 
new  fashion,  with  less  of  fuss  and  outward  profession, 
but  with  just  as  much  tenacity  and  integrity,  he  himself 
finds  new  ways  of  attacking  the  problems  of  life ;  and  as 
he  finds  that,  he  discovers  also  an  untold  richness  in  the 
great  underlying  truths  of  religion,  man's  brotherhood, 
God's  fatherhood. 

So,  then,  these  increased  facilities  widen  the  heart's 
sympathies,  until  a  man  is  no  longer  a  Wilbrahamite,  a 
Massachusetts  man,  a  New  Englander :  he  is  an  Ameri- 
can. And  I  tell  you  that  is  the  greatest  of  all  feelings, 
of  all  privileges. 

But  some  people  are  too  clannish  to  attain  unto  it. 
I  met  an  old  friend  of  mine  two  years  ago.  He  began 
to  talk  about  the  unusual  advantages  offered  by  Massa- 
chusetts and  especially  Boston.  He  called  my  attention 
to  Concord  and  Lexington.  He  asked  me  if  I  had  been 
into  the  new  Public  Library.  I  said  to  him:  "What 
about  Germantown  and  Valley  Forge?  What  about  the 
drafting  and  signing  of  the  Constitution?  What  about 
Independence  and  the  Continental  Congresses?  What 
about  the  great  battle-field  of  history,  Gettysburg?  We 
also  have  made  history."  He  said  nothing.  A  few 
years  ago,  when  East,  I  was  purchasing  some  wearing 
apparel  and  while  the  clerk  did  up  the  bundle  and  we 
chatted  about  places,  he  remarked :  "I  am  happy  to  say 
that  I  never  lived  outside  of  Newton." 

Understand,  I  am  not  finding  fault  with  people. 
They  should  remember  that  not  every  man  can  live  in 
Massachusetts,  much  less  in  Boston.  Duty  obliges  some 
men  to  hustle  and  go.  They  are  not  contented  to  sponge 

114 


upon  their  friends.  Perhaps  they  have  no  friends.  They 
are  obliged  to  get  out  from  country  and  kin. 

But  when  such  men  get  out  of  sight  of  land,  get  out 
on  the  boundless  prairie,  they  find  the  cosmopolitan  spirit 
exhilarating.  And  among  the  richest  of  their  new  acqui- 
sitions is  a  tide  of  religious  belief  which  does  not  take  its 
set  from  the  beliefs  of  a  few  neighbors  with  whom  they 
are  and  have  always  been  in  close  and  safe  contact;  but 
it  is  a  tide  that  swells  up  out  of  the  confidence  that  God 
is  bountiful  enough  and  loving  enough  to  take  care  of 
them  no  matter  how  soon  or  how  much  conditions  may 
change. 

The  pastor  resident  here  at  the  time  of  my  removal 
called  my  attention  to  the  fact  that  I  was  assuming  great 
risks.  I  told  him  that  my  thoughts  of  removal  were  of 
some  years'  standing  and  that  many  things  had  led  me  to 
this  step.  He  still  called  me  rash.  "If  you  were  in  the 
conference,"  he  said,  "it  would  make  a  difference."  I 
called  his  attention  to  the  man  of  old  who  went  out  "not 
knowing  whither,"  yet  I  confess  that,  even  while  I  plead 
my  case,  there  were  in  my  heart  strong  misgivings.  I  too 
am  an  emigrant  and  the  son  of  an  emigrant.  But  no 
man  ever  cared  less  to  wander,  no  man  ever  suffered 
more  from  homesickness,  or  does  now  at  times.  But 
when  a  man  comes  to  a  crisis  of  duty  such  things  are  not 
to  be  considered. 

A  kind  neighbor  said  to  me :  "You  will  never  sink 
as  deep  a  tap-root  in  Pennsylvania."  And  I  half  be- 
lieved what  he  said.  But  I  have  not  found  it  wholly 
true.  Ten  years  have  slipped  rapidly  away  and  soon  an- 
other ten  will  pass,  and  I  have  learned  that  a  man  has  no 
chance  to  think  of  tap-roots,  of  affections  and  states  of 
feeling.  He  finds  absorbing  duties.  He  finds  new 


friends  who  soon  become  dear  friends.  He  finds  others 
also  who  are  suffering  the  same  conditions  of  change, 
who  are  in  partial  exile,  and  the  result  is  a  bond  of  sym- 
pathy which  is  unique  and  tender.  In  the  village  where 
I  live  are  at  least  two-score  of  New  Englanders.  What 
is  more  natural  than  that  they  should  talk  of  old  faces 
and  old  friends?  These  are  the  delightful  bonds  of  our 
larger  Americanism.  We  are  not  severed  from  the  old 
by  being  brought  into  touch  with  the  new. 

But  while  we  argue  for  cosmopolitanism,  there  is 
after  all  "no  place  like  home."  The  heart  says  that  and 
says  it  all  the  time.  There  are  no  peoples  in  whom  the 
love  of  home  is  stronger  than  in  these  Germans  and  Irish 
and  English  who  for  a  hundred  years  have  been  building 
up  empires  toward  the  sunset  and  in  the  antipodes. 
Their  domestic  affection  crops  out  in  their  love  for  their 
motherland ;  it  crops  out  in  the  names  they  give  to  their 
settlements,  it  crops  out  in  the  build  of  their  dwellings,  it 
crops  out  in  their  mode  of  worship  and  in  their  forms  of 
government. 

And  when  these  wanderers  turn  their  steps  home- 
wards, the  home-places  and  home-faces  seem  trans- 
formed and  glorified.  There  seems  a  sacredness  every- 
where which  was  not  there  in  earlier  times. 

I  visited  my  boyhood  home  after  twenty-eight  years 
of  absence.  A  visit  to  heaven  could  scarcely  touch  me 
more  deeply.  The  place  where  I  used  to  play,  by  the 
brook,  and  on  the  hill-side,  seemed  unreal.  When  I  saw 
men  of  more  than  forty  whom  I  had  left  boys  at  twelve ; 
when  I  saw  the  parish  church  and  school  and  the  old 
familiar  places,  they  all  seemed  unreal — heavenly. 

Eight  years  ago,  after  only  two  years  of  absence, 
when  I  arrived  in  Springfield  at  three  o'clock  in  the 


116 


morning  and  walked  about  the  silent,  vacant  streets  and 
read  the  old  familiar  signs,  I  could  hardly  believe  that  I 
had  traded  here  and  there  so  many  years  and  known  so 
many  pleasant  friends.  When,  later  in  the  morning,  the 
Wilbraham  hills  arose  to  view,  it  seemed  nothing  less 
than  the  touch  of  a  magician's  wand.  I  had  always 
thought  that  Wilbraham  was  enveloped  in  an  unusually 
spiritual  atmosphere,  but  never  as  I  did  that  morning.  So 
much,  as  you  see,  does  the  cosmopolitan  spirit  enrich  men's 
ideas.  The  new  loves  put  the  old  loves  a  little  farther 
back,  a  little  farther  away,  and  so  the  old  love  loses  all  but 
what  is  best  and  most  precious  in  it. 

These  children  of  the  world  who  are  privileged  to 
wander  back  here  today  feel  their  hearts  beat  warmer, 
feel  their  memories  quickened  under  the  shadows  of  these 
hills  and  this  old  campus,  with  the  sacred  old  buildings 
looking  down  upon  us  and  the  streets  and  homes  re- 
peopled  by  the  departed  of  other  days.  Our  thought 
calls  back  again  all  our  old  friends  and  neighbors  and 
compels  them  to  play  again  their  varied  parts  in  life. 

It  is  no  great  task  to  travel  in  imagination  today, 
starting  at  North  Wilbraham  and  visiting  from  house  to 
house,  clear  down  to  the  Hampden  line.  It  is  not  hard 
to  repeople  each  household  and  bring  back  to  their  usual 
activities  those  who  lie  buried  up  yonder  in  God's  acre, 
or  down  yonder  in  the  lower  cemetery  or  elsewhere  where 
God  in  His  providence  has  scattered  them  and  planted 
them.  The  memorials  of  some  were  reared  over  their 
early  youth  and  are  long  since  moss-covered.  Others 
left  us  but  a  few  days  ago. 

I  wonder  if  any  town  could  furnish  a  worthier  com- 
pany or  one  that  will  be  more  likely  to  answer  the  first 
resurrection  call?  True  cosmopolitians  they  were,  in 

117 


that  they  had  hearts  to  help  all  worthy  comers  from 
whatever  quarter,  and  especially  to  help  in  the  education 
of  hundreds  of  young  people,  in  a  way  quite  as  effectual 
for  good  as  the  best  work  of  the  instructor  in  the  school- 
room. 

In  saying  this,  I  am  thinking  only  of  our  fellow- 
citizens,  whether  living  or  dead,  of  whatever  faith  or  of  no 
faith.  The  men  who  ran  their  farms  and  drove  their 
teams,  as  well  as  others;  of  the  women  who  stuck  to 
their  domestic  duties;  of  the  homes  which  instructed 
children  in  integrity  and  duty.  In  these  regards,  and 
in  proportion  to  its  size,  our  town  is  not  surpassed  by  any 
in  this  commonwealth. 

I  take  my  hat  off  today,  and  we  all,  I  hope,  uncover, 
not  merely  to  piety,  to  learning,  to  honored  family  record, 
or  to  wealth,  but  also  to  the  memory  of  any  fellow  towns- 
man, however  humble  may  have  been  his  life,  who  was 
not  afraid  of  work  of  whatever  sort  it  might  be,  men 
who  were  slaves  to  work  but  not  enslaved  by  work,  men 
whose  calloused  hands  and  sunburnt  faces  were  the  proof 
that  they  had  won  a  hard  and  an  honorable  living. 

These  are  some  of  the  thoughts  that  daily  and  week- 
ly course  through  the  minds  and  stir  in  the  hearts  of  the 
men  who  have  been  scattered  from  Wilbraham  and  would 
like  to  return  today  but  cannot:  men  in  San  Francisco 
and  Portland,  Oregon;  men  in  Denver,  Chicago,  and 
Evanston;  men  in  Philadelphia,  New  York,  and  Boston; 
men  on  every  continent ;  for  there  is  not  a  city  nor  a  place 
I  have  named  where  I  do  not  think  of  one  or  several  who 
would  honor  this  home  festival  if  it  lay  in  their  power. 

I  wish  I  were  a  poet  with  the  gifts  of  Wordsworth 
or  Tennyson.  I  feel  a  glory  reflected  from  the  hills,  and 


118 


have  for  forty  years,  which  I  am  powerless  to  express. 
The  daisies,  the  columbines,  and  the  roses  have  for  years 
affected  me  as  sensitively  as  the  daffodils  did  the  lake 
poet.  I  wish  I  could  sing  to  the  brook  that  slips  out  of 
the  grotto  and  shyly  hides  in  the  pools  under  the  brushes 
and  crosses  the  mountain  road  and  swirves  down  the  pas- 
ture, issuing  out  again  to  add  perfection  to  this  scene  of 
shaded  terrace.  And  when  it  comes  to  the  moral  and  re- 
ligious thoughts  which  were  born  here  or  fostered  here, 
on  that  sacred  knoll-top,  in  association  with  scores  and 
hundreds  who  are  now  an  honor  to  every  state  in  the  Un- 
ion, when  it  comes  to  these  thoughts  which  revive  here 
and  now  under  these  auspices,  who  can  enumerate  them? 
The  occasions  of  good,  the  calls  of  duty,  the  association 
with  those  to  whom  the  call  of  duty  was  constant  and 
trumpet-tongued,  noble  teachers,  companionable  fellow- 
students — how  all  this  comes  up  before  the  memory! 

I  speak  from  the  heart  today.  If  I  were  as  rich  as 
Mr.  Carnegie  or  Mr.  Schwab,  Wilbraham  Academy 
should  have  my  first  gift  and  no  other  school  should  have 
a  larger  or  a  worthier.  I  do  not  know  that  I  would 
necessarily  want  the  fact  impressed  that  it  was  a  Metho- 
dist school.  But  I  would  have  a  school  which  should 
vary  as  little  as  possible  from  the  old  spirit  and  the  old 
traditions  of  this  school,  a  school  inspired  for  the  future 
by  its  already  noble  record,  a  school  where  education  was 
not  beyond  the  purpose  of  the  average  man,  a  school  open 
to  girls  as  well  as  to  boys,  their  privileges  running  head 
to  head  as  they  always  have.  This  old  school  has  been  a 
positive  blessing  to  the  commonwealth  for  what  it  has 
done  in  that  regard.  Our  American  Union  will  never 
see  the  day  when  it  ought  to  dispense  with  such  schools. 

119 


Stevenson  says  :  "We  all  belong  to  many  countries," 
and  he  elsewhere  says :  "In  one  way  and  another  life 
forces  men  apart  and  breaks  up  the  goodly  fellowships 
forever." 

It  must  be  so.  The  great  country  in  which  we  live 
is  constantly  exchanging  its  population.  If  a  man  can- 
not find  work  which  sufficiently  compensates  him  among 
old  friends,  he  must  seek  new  places  and  make  other 
friends.  The  Pennsylvanian  comes  into  Massachusetts. 
The  Rhode  Islander  goes  to  Nebraska.  There  are  the 
appointments  of  duty. 

But  in  these  changes,  you  may  depend  upon  it,  we  do 
not  forget  the  old  faces.  "Absence  makes  the  heart  grow 
fonder ;"  so  much  so,  that  we  are  filled  with  infinite  delight 
when  it  is  possible  for  us  to  come  to  such  reunions  as 
this.  Today  we  look  into  the  dear  faces  of  many  who  re- 
main, and  recall  the  lineaments  of  those  whom  we  shall 
never  see.  We  look  into  the  expressive  eyes  of  the  liv- 
ing, we  feel  the  grasp  of  their  hands,  but  only  to  be  re- 
minded more  vividly  of  the  vanished  hands  and  the  voices 
forever  still  in  this  world. 

We  will  carry  the  memory  of  this  Home  Week  with 
us.  God  helping  us  we  will  not  fall  below  the  virtues  of 
those  who  have  preceded  us ;  God  helping  us  we  will  each 
depart  to  his  own  place  and  take  hold  with  good  cheer  of 
his  own  work ;  and  then,  when  our  evening  comes,  we  hope 
to  have  a  place  up  yonder — and  to  have  earned  it — where 

"Each  in  his  narrow  cell  forever  laid, 
The  rude  forefathers  of  the  hamlet  sleep." 

Delivered  on  the  Campus  at  Wilbraham,  Massachusetts, 
July  29,  1902. 


120 


VIII.     THE  PROBLEMS  OF  LIFE  SOLVED 
BY  WORSHIP 

Psalm  73:17. 

The  thought  uppermost  in  many  of  our  minds  this 
morning  is  that  this  is  the  last  Sunday  service  to  be  held 
in  this  place.  We  are  at  a  point  where  to  stop  a  moment 
and  be  thoughtful  is  not  a  sentiment  but  a  duty. 

In  some  remarks  made  in  this  chapel  last  fall  before 
a  meeting  of  the  Daughters  of  the  Revolution,  I  empha- 
sized the  fact  that  religious  worship  is  a  necessity  to  the 
full  complete  life  of  schools  and  colleges.  It  cannot  be 
dispensed  with  even  by  schools  that  are  undenominational. 
I  showed  at  that  time  that  exactly  the  same  religious  in- 
fluences are  at  work  in  the  State  Colleges  as  in  the  Church 
Schools,  and  also  that  the  religious  life  in  schools  like 
ours  has  some  advantages. 

The  worship  which  has  prevailed  for  a  long  period 
in  schools  and  colleges  of  the  English-speaking  peoples 
has  resulted  in  a  peculiar  moral  and  religious  type  of  char- 
acter. If  the  Englishman  and  American  are  most  enter- 
prising, if  they  have  already  taken  possession  of  the 
largest  portions  of  the  earth;  if  among  them  prevails  a 
greater  liberty  in  politics  and  commerce ;  if  the  unfolding 
of  the  world's  nobler  life  may  truly  be  said  to  be  in  their 
hands,  and  if  they  have  shaken  off  in  good  part  the  fet- 
ters of  barbarism  and  mediaevalism ;  it  is  because  of  the 
marked  moral  strength  of  their  public  men.  These 
men,  nearly  all  of  them,  have  imbibed  their  ideals  of  life 
and  their  strength  in  duty  from  the  religious  teachings 
of  the  school  or  college.  A  spirit  of  strong  and  sensible 
reliance  on  God,  of  devotion  to  the  interests  of  humanity, 


ventures  into  the  heathenism  of  Asia  and  into  the  bar- 
barism of  Africa  and  America,  seeking  a  market  for  its 
trade  and  at  the  same  time  spreading  a  knowledge  of  Jesus 
Christ.  We  call  it  the  Anglo-Saxon  spirit.  And  it  is 
indeed  the  Saxon  love  of  home,  the  Saxon  reverence  for 
liberty,  the  Saxon  spirit  of  adventure,  only  upon  these  has 
been  engrafted  also  the  spirit  of  the  religion  of  Jesus 
Christ,  causing  the  Saxon  home  life  to  become  purer, 
cleansing  the  Saxon  love  of  liberty  from  the  spirit  of 
license,  and  freeing  the  Saxon  love  of  adventure  from 
barbarous  rapine  and  butchery ;  thus  making  the  channel 
of  universal  brotherhood. 

Certain  schools  and  colleges  in  England  and  America 
have  been  for  many  generations  peculiar  sources  of  moral 
and  religious  power.  From  the  University  Church  of 
Saint  Mary's,  Oxford,  have  issued  some  of  the  greatest 
religious  messages  that  England  has  heard  since  the  refor- 
mation. The  Chapels  of  the  great  public  schools  like 
Rugby,  Harow,  Marlborough,  and  Westminster,  have  been 
the  places  where  England  has  built  moral  back-bone  into 
many  of  her  young  men.  From  them  she  has  sent  forth 
a  peculiar  class  into  her  court,  her  churches,  her  army  and 
navy  and  her  public  life.  Some  of  them  one  would  hard- 
ly call  religious  men,  though  at  the  same  time  their  whole 
moral  nature  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  very 
strongest  religious  principle. 

Thomas  Arnold  stands  among  the  greatest  of  the  edu- 
cators of  England.  But  though  Arnold  was  a  born  edu- 
cator, it  was,  after  all,  in  Rugby  Chapel  that  he  exerted 
his  greatest  influence.  The  Rev.  Frederich  Temple,  late 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  exerted  perhaps  as  great  an  in- 
fluence when  he  was  head-master  of  the  same  school. 
The  boys  who  were  at  Marlborough  during  his  master- 

122 


ship,  will  never  forget  the  sermons  preached  there  by  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Farrar.  The  same  might  be  said  of  the  sermons 
preached,  when  he  was  head-master  at  Harrow,  by  Dr. 
Welldon,  the  present  bishop  of  Calcutta. 

And  in  our  own  country  certain  colleges  have  been 
for  five  or  six  generations  marked  sources  of  religious 
and  moral  power,  moulding  from  the  very  start  our  Consti- 
tution and  our  National  life.  That  has  been  particularly 
true  of  Princeton  where  Edwards,  Davies,  McCosh,  Patton 
and  others  have  been  towers  of  strength ;  true  of  Obelin 
under  the  moulding  influences  of  Finney  and  Fair- 
child  ;  true  of  Harvard  which  has  enjoyed  the  teachings  of 
the  elder  and  younger  Peabody,  of  Edward  E.  Hale,  and 
Phillips  Brooks ;  true  of  Yale  perhaps  equally  with  Prince- 
ton, for  the  pulpit  of  Yale  College  gave  the  key  to  the  re- 
ligious thinking  of  New  England  as  did  Princeton  to  the 
Middle  States,  and  the  South.  Hence  when  Yale  moved 
out  of  its  old  Chapel  in  1876,  President  Porter  took  the 
occasion  to  trace  the  influence  that  Yale  had  wielded 
through  such  men  as  Fitch,  Stiles,  Goodrich,  and  particu- 
larly Dwight. 

We  make  no  pretence  to  look  back  today  over  such  a 
history.  We  are  not  denominational.  This  assembling- 
place  has  not  been  for  religious  use  only.  It  has  been  an 
assembling-place  only  fourteen  years.  And  yet  it  has  had 
its  steadying  and  moulding  influence  upon  the  moral  and 
religious  life  of  those  who  have  volunteered  to  come  or 
have  been  obliged  to  come  and  attend  its  worship. 

It  has  been  my  privilege  to  worship  here  with  con- 
siderable regularity  for  the  last  eleven  years,  daily  and  on 
Sundays.  I  think  that  after  thirty  years  of  teaching  I 
may  speak  with  some  authority  and  I  say  that  after 
twenty-four  years  of  experience  in  denominational 

123 


schools,  I  found  the  daily  Chapel  service  in  this  place 
regularly  and  constantly  far  more  orderly  than  any  to 
which  I  had  been  accustomed.  Indeed,  it  has  approached 
as  close  to  perfection  as  any  such  service  could. 

So  far  as  the  Sunday  service  is  concerned,  I  have 
never  been  in  a  place  where  I  have  heard  Christ  held  up 
as  our  example  so  constantly  and  earnestly,  never  where 
I  have  heard  fewer  attempts  to  start  difficult  questions 
and  make  it  hard  for  the  beginner  in  the  religious  life. 
Certainly,  during  the  fourth,  fifth,  and  sixth  years  of  my 
life  here,  it  was  my  privilege  to  hear  the  most  eloquent  as 
well  as  the  most  instructive  preaching  to  which  I  have 
ever  listened.  Those  of  us  who  heard  them  ought  to 
thank  God  for  the  eloquence  that  came  from  the  lips  of 
Dr.  John  M.  Gregory,  and  for  stirring  messages, — greater 
always  than  his  heart  or  head  could  hold — of  Dr.  Law- 
rence M.  Colfelt. 

It  surely  cannot  be  out  of  place  to  recall  today  many 
public  occasions  (Commencement  and  otherwise),  when 
this  room  has  been  packed  closely  with  people, — Com- 
mencement Sundays,  Commencement  days,  legislative 
visits.  What  uplifting  messages  have  come  to  us,  from 
Governors  of  Pennsylvania,  from  high  officials  of  the 
State  and  General  Government,  from  business  men,  from 
doctors  of  divinity,  from  heads  of  colleges  and  of  universi- 
ties. I  trust  I  am  speaking  with  discretion  when  I  say 
that  we  recall  also  today  how,  from  time  to  time  in  this 
place,  our  honored  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees 
has  shown  his  warm  love  for  the  Pennsylvania  State  Col- 
lege, which  seems  much  more  upon  his  heart  than  his  own 
alma  mater;  we  recall  how  he  has  spoken  to  the  mem- 
bers of  the  legislature,  when  here  present,  of  the  crying 
needs  of  our  work ;  how  enthusiastic  he  has  been  in  our 


124 


praise;  and  we  also  recall  that  he  has  not  been  afraid 
openly  to  rebuke  us  sometimes  for  our  lack  of  college- 
spirit  and  high  purpose.  We  remember  also  with  what 
a  steady  and  unostentatious  purpose  our  President  has 
managed  from  this  centre  our  college  affairs ;  how  he  has 
here  time  and  again  unburdened  his  heart  and  laid  bare 
his  purpose  for  the  future  of  the  college ;  how  he  has 
pleaded  her  needs;  how  he  has  seen  her  steady  growth; 
and  how  finally  he  saw  her,  last  June,  reach  the  top  of  the 
divide,  as  we  believe,  and  enter  upon  her  larger  future. 
Well  assured  may  we  be  today  in  this  house  of  worship 
that  the  Pennsylvania  State  College  will  never  experience 
hours  of  harder  struggle  or  of  greater  triumph  than  she 
has  experienced  under  his  leadership  and  from  this  place. 

We  recall  also  other  influences  which  should  not  be 
forgotten,  for  they  have  constantly  rendered  this  service 
not  only  attractive  but  inspiring  and  helpful, — the  unin- 
terrupted fidelity  of  our  chorister,  the  effectual  help  ren- 
dered by  our  choirs,  quartettes,  and  orchestras.  Nor  would 
we  forget  that  absent  brotherhood — part  of  them  now  a 
silent  brotherhood — nearly  five  hundred  of  whom  have 
graduated  from  this  platform — our  alumni. 

But  what  particular  thing  should  we  recall  with  most 
gratitude  today?  I  speak  now  to  those  of  us  who  have 
been  through  a  series  of  years.  Without  hesitation,  if 
I  were  to  take  my  own  thought  to  interpret  yours,  I 
should  say,  "the  routine  of  daily  morning  college  chapel." 

Some  years  ago  I  was  at  Durham  in  England,  visit- 
ing its  castle  and  famous  Cathedral.  I  heard  the  tower 
bells  tolling  the  call  for  vesper  service.  The  constant  re- 
currence of  the  sixth  and  fifth  notes  of  the  scale  sounded 
sweetly  on  the  evening  air.  I  thought  to  myself  then, 
"How  beautiful  it  would  be  if  one  could  thus  get  a  few 


125 


quiet  moments  every  day  to  worship  God."  But  when  I 
got  back  again  to  my  school  work  in  America,  the  routine 
of  daily  chapel  led  me  to  think,  ''Here  is  what  you  wished 
for  at  Durham.  You  are  here  following  in  the  foot-steps 
of  those  who  established  worship  in  the  cathedrals  and 
abbeys  of  the  old  world.  They  and  their  children  have 
transplanted  and  continued  here  that  daily  service  of 
worship  and  praise  to  Almighy  God  which  is  really  the 
life  of  all  high  morality  and  the  flower  of  true  religion." 

When  Yale  moved  into  its  present  chapel — a  fact  to 
which  I  referred  a  moment  ago — the  President  declared 
that  the  daily  service  had  been  held  in  the  Yale  College 
chapel  with  hardly  an  interruption  since  1718,  a  period  of 
a  hundred  and  fifty-eight  years.  Think  of  the  worship 
offered  continually  during  all  that  time  to  Almighty  God ; 
think  of  the  sublime  religious  truths,  the  noble  moral  prin- 
ciples, kept  constantly  before  the  ever-flowing-stream  of 
youth,  and  exemplified  in  characters  becoming  more 
saintly  with  age ;  think  of  the  prayers  offered ;  think  of 
the  varying  outward  circumstances;  think  of  the  con- 
stantly enlarging  brotherhood  of  alumni ;  think  of  the  in- 
spiring record  made  by  the  living  and  of  the  honored  roll 
of  the  dead ;  think  of  the  college-spirit  gradually  evolved ; 
and  you  may  easily  account  for  a  certain  moral  atmos- 
phere not  only  peculiar  to  Yale  but  also  to  Harvard  and 
other  colleges.  And  today,  from  Appleton  Chapel,  from 
Battell  Chapel,  from  Marquand  and  Sage  Chapels  are 
issuing  influences  which  cause  us  to  be  hopeful  for  our 
best  American  youth  and  for  the  best  interests  of  our 
country. 

Here,  in  other  words,  is  the  one  truth  that  we  have 
been  slowly  building  up  before  you  today :  that  the  habit 
of  daily  worship  has  more  power  to  establish  and  direct 

126 


a  man  in  the  true  moral  and  religious  principle  than  all 
the  arguments  in  the  world. 

Arguments  do  not  often  convince  men.  One  man 
of  intelligence  seldom  wins  another  over  to  his  way  of 
thinking.  And,  really,  religion  is  not  founded  on  argu- 
ment anyhow.  It  is  an  experience.  It  never  can  be, 
never  was  intended  to  be,  a  demonstration.  Mathematics 
and  science  are  in  one  realm ;  philosophy  in  another ;  and 
religion  in  still  another.  Begin  to  think,  begin  to  act, 
upon  the  best  religious  truth  you  now  know,  and  you  will 
come  to  have  convincing  proof  of  all  religious  truth.  "I 
went  into  the  sanctuary  of  God,"  says  the  Psalmist,  "then 
understood  I."  He  had  been  puzzled  thinking  why 
wicked  people  prospered  so.  He  had  seen  them  well  off 
in  life  and  not  afraid  in  death.  He  had  seen  others 
flocking  over  to  their  company  and  their  habit,  until  he 
had  finally  begun  to  say :  "Why  should  I  have  a  clean 
heart?  Why  should  I  keep  my  hands  clean?"  He  came, 
in  other  words,  to  that  condition  where  his  feet  were  al- 
most gone,  when  his  steps  had  well-nigh  slipped.  "Until 
I  went  into  the  house  of  God,"  he  says,  "then  under- 
stood I."  He  saw,  as  he  worshipped  with  God's  people 
in  the  temple,  as  he  there  contemplated  in  quiet  their 
changing  and  eventful  history  through  long  periods,  that 
the  wicked  are  punished  and  that  the  righteous  are  re- 
warded, however  many  may  be  the  apparently  painful  ex- 
ceptions. And  that  is  what,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
chapter,  and  even  before  he  has  told  his  experience,  makes 
him  eager  to  utter  the  conviction:  "Surely  God  is  good 
to  Israel,  even  to  such  as  are  pure  in  heart !" 

The  thought  we  linger  upon,  as  we  worship  regularly 
here  today  for  the  last  time,  is,  that  the  problems  of  this 
life  are  solved  most  effectually  by  habitual  worship.  Our 

127 


ancestors  knew  this  when,  so  long  ago,  they  established 
it  and  because  they  have  uninterruptedly  followed  the 
custom. 

In  some  countries  of  the  old  world — France,  for  in- 
stance— religion  is  altogether  slighted  or  else  bungled  so 
that  in  consequence  morality  is  low  and  government  ready 
to  fall.  In  some,  as  Germany,  the  intellectual  side  of  re- 
ligion is  pressed  and  as  a  consequence  we  have  a  strong 
established  church,  a  people  versed  in  the  history  of  re- 
ligion and  in  biblical  criticism,  but  not  a  people  who  are 
evolving  many  new  religious  problems  or  who  are 
skilled  in  handling  questions  that  tend  to  a  broader  relig- 
ious life.  In  the  countries  of  South  Europe  the  aesthetic 
and  emotional  side  of  religion  is  cultivated,  and  the  re- 
sult is  that  superstition  prevails  and  the  light  of  truth 
cannot  enter. 

But  in  the  countries  of  the  English-speaking  peoples, 
where  worship  has  been  long  established,  a  worship  which 
calls  into  play  the  emotions,  the  intelligence,  in  fact  all 
the  faculties  of  man,  a  worship  which  has  come  to  follow 
a  custom  fixed  almost  as  the  stars,  a  worship  in  which 
new  phases  of  truth  have  not  been  feared  and  in  which 
old  truths  have  been  dropped  when  their  work  was  done — 
here  we  find  peoples  solid  in  government,  sound  in  morals, 
progressive  and  ever  approaching  nearer  the  truth  in  re- 
ligion. 

Ralph  Waldro  Emerson  wrote  years  ago  that  Nature 
had  adopted  into  its  race  the  abbeys  and  cathedrals  of 
England, 

"And  granted  them  an  equal  date 
With  Andes  and  with  Ararat." 

And  as  truly  may  it  be  said  that  the  loving  God,  our 
Heavenly  Father,  adopts  into  His  heart  and,  so  to  speak, 
into  His  race,  all  true  worshippers. 

128 


The  crying  need  of  our  age,  and  particularly  among 
men,  if  we  may  believe  the  reports,  is  the  cultivation  of 
the  habit  of  public  worship.  The  crying  need  in  every 
private  life  is  more  prayer;  more  devoted  personal  wor- 
ship of  God ;  more  time  spent  upon  our  knees  and  in  the 
privacy  of  our  closets. 

One  hour  a  week  publicly, — is  there  any  man  that  can- 
not afford  that?  Ten  minutes  privately  every  day — you 
surely  would  not  begrudge  that.  We  are  not  asking  you 
whether  you  believe  in  God,  or  the  Bible,  or  have  been 
brought  up  religiously,  or  have  religious  leanings  or  re- 
ligious antipathies.  All  we  say  is  "Worship  God."  Just 
as  surely  as  you  begin  and  continue  the  habit,  taking  the 
suggestions  of  those  who  have  had  experience,  and  the 
guidance  of  the  word  of  God,  you  may  depend  upon  it 
that  the  result  will  be  such  a  revelation  of  spiritual  truth, 
such  an  increase  of  moral  power,  that  you  will  wonder 
how  this  can  be  or  whence  it  comes. 

You  would  not  doubt  me  if  I  said,  "Put  your  ear  to 
the  telephone  and  you  may  hear  your  friend  five  hundred 
miles  away."  You  would  not  say,  "But  I  do  not  under- 
stand electricity."  If  I  said,  "By  boarding  this  train  you 
may  be  in  Pittsburgh  in  six  hours,"  you  surely  would  not 
say,  "But  I  do  not  believe  that  such  a  ponderous  train  is 
run  by  steam  as  you  say." 

I  was  almost  about  to  say,  "We  do  not  care  for  what 
men  believe,  so  much  as  for  what  men  can  really  do."  We 
talk  of  men  understanding  better  the  secrets  of  nature 
than  they  used  to,  but  men  do  not  know  any  better 
than  they  ever  did,  the  mystery  of  atoms,  of  molecular 
motion,  of  wave-motion,  of  the  source  of  life,  of  the  sanc- 
tion of  conscience.  Man  does  understand  better  what  can 


be  done  with  these  secrets  of  nature.  He  does  put  the 
bit  upon  them  for  his  purposes,  and  that  is  the  main 
thing  after  all. 

How  long  are  you  to  wait  until  you  see  God  ?  How 
long  will  it  be  until  you  can  fathom  the  mysteries  of  crea- 
tion and  religion?  Is  it  a  century,  a  millenium,  an  eter- 
nity? The  habitual  act  of  worship  will  reveal  to  us  the 
answer  to  all  such  questions. 

The  worship  of  anything  which  we  regard  as  super- 
natural, as  greater  than  ourselves,  is  infinitely  better  than 
apathy,  than  no  worship.  Better  worship  a  fetish  than 
not  worship  at  all.  Even  the  worship  of  an  Apollo  and 
an  Athene  lifted  up  the  taste  and  the  culture  of  the  world 
for  all  time  to  come,  lifted  it  to  a  level  never  before  at- 
tained and  never  since  surpassed.  But  to  say  that  there 
is  nothing  to  worship — to  doubt — to  call  everything  in 
question — nothing  in  all  our  nature  calls  more  loudly  for 
the  epithet  of  "fool,"  nothing  in  our  nature  so  revolts  us. 

"Great  God,  I'd  rather  be 
A  pagan  suckled  in  a  creed  outworn, 
So  might  I,  standing  on  this  pleasant  lea, 
Have  glimpses  that  would  make  me  less  forlorn; 
Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising  from  the  sea, 
And  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn." 

Yes,  better  that  every  star  and  the  great  sun  were 
believed  to  be  gods,  better  every  mountain  and  stream  and 
tree  had  its  nymph  or  naiad,  better  that  all  nature  were 
alive  with  gods  again  and  Olympus  once  more  reestab- 
lished, than  have  no  gods  at  all  and  be  left  upon  a  ship- 
wrecked, stranded,  pilotless  world. 

It  is  worship,  habitual  worship,  that  reveals  religion 
in  man.  It  is  by  habitual  worship  that  religion  is  purified 
and  by  it  it  shall  reach  its  perfection.  It  seems  that  the 

130 


Apostle  John  in  Revelation  had  pictured  that  last  great 
scene  of  perfected  adoration  where  he  says :  "And  I 
heard  the  voice  of  many  angels  round  about  the  throne 
and  the  living  creatures  and  the  elders;  and  the  number 
of  them  was  ten  thousand  times  ten  thousand  and  thou- 
sands of  thousands ;  saying  with  a  great  voice,  'worthy  is 
the  Lamb  that  was  slain,  to  receive  the  power  and  riches 
and  wisdom  and  might  and  honor  and  glory  and  blessing/ 
And  every  created  thing  which  is  the  heaven,  and  on  the 
earth,  and  under  the  earth  and  on  the  sea,  and  all  things 
that  are  in  them  heard  I  saying,  'Unto  Him  that  sitteth 
in  the  throne,  and  unto  the  Lamb,  be  the  blessing,  and 
the  honor,  and  the  glory  and  the  dominion,  forever  and 
ever/  " 

Our  moving  out  of  the  old  chapel  should  furnish  us  a 
useful  lesson.  All  true  life  and  all  true  progress  is  con- 
stantly moving  out,  is  occupying  a  more  extended  terri- 
tory and  coming  under  an  ampler  heaven.  It  is  worship 
which  thus  enlarges  mens'  hearts  and  mens'  horizons. 

The  gift  of  Mr.  Schwab  is  worth  more  to  the  college 
than  ten  fold  the  real  value  of  the  money  involved,  be- 
cause it  enlarges  the  college's  capacity,  it  enlarges  its 
property,  it  enhances  its  outward  appearance,  it  gives  it 
already  greater  essential  dignity.  And  do  you  not  sup- 
pose that  the  gifts  of  God  to  us  enrich  us  a  thousand  fold 
more?  What  a  rich  creation  to  an  unfathomable  depth 
lies  all  around  us !  What  visible  beauties,  what  invisi- 
ble wealth!  What  a  nature  within  us  to  correspond; 
What  challenges  every  day  and  on  every  hand  to  ob- 
servation, to  inspiration,  to  duty,  and  to  truth!  Under 
these  conditions  it  will  not  do  for  us  to  be  satisfied  with 
present  things  nor  with  small  things. 

131 


May  God  awaken  in  us  all  holy  desires  after  Him. 
May  we  find  our  daily  work  and  do  it  in  His  fear.  Thus 
and  thus  only  shall  we  come  to  the  transformations  which 
seem  best  typified  by  some  winged  things.  We,  like 
them,  do  but  crawl  at  first,  then  by  and  by,  like  them  we 
are  wrapped  in  our  cocoon  or  sleep  of  death,  that  most 
unpierced  of  all  the  mysteries, — and  who  knows  but,  at 
the  last,  like  them  we  shall  be  lifted  up  above  the  earth, 
our  faith  and  purity  having  lent  us  wings,  having  trans- 
ferred us  into  spiritual  being  and  angelic  surroundings? 
God  grant  no  secret  thing  may  eat  into  our  first  estate  and 
so  render  our  last  estate  impossible. 

"Build  thee  more  stately  mansions,  O,  my  soul, 

As  the  swift  seasons  roll! 

Leave  thy  low-vaulted  past ! 
Let  each  new  temple,  nobler  than  the  last, 
Shut  thee  from  heaven  with  a  dome  more  vast, 

Till  thou  at  length  are  free, 
Leaving  thine  outgrown  shell  by  life's  unresting  sea." 

Delivered  in  the  Old  Chapel,  June  7,  1913. 


X.     PRAYERS 


Almighty  God,  in  whom  we  live  and  move,  we  turn 
our  thoughts  and  hearts  to  Thee,  and  pray  for  thy  pres- 
ence at  this  hour. 

Heaven  is  thy  throne  and  earth  is  thy  footstool.  The 
heaven  of  heavens  cannot  contain  Thee.  The  nations  of 
men  are  as  nothing  before  Thee.  Thou  lookest  upon  the 
isles  as  a  very  little  thing.  Thou  bringest  princes  to  noth- 
ing and  makest  the  judges  of  the  earth  as  vanity. 


And  yet  Thou  also  visitest  the  earth  and  waterest  it. 
Thine  eye  seeth  every  precious  thing.  Thou  openest  thy 
hand  and  satisfiest  the  desire  of  every  living  thing.  Thou 
visitest  the  temples  reared  to  thy  praise  and  even  condes- 
cendest  to  make  the  hearts  of  men  thy  dwelling-place. 

We  thank  Thee  that  Thou  givest  life,  and  that  to 
Thy  highest  creatures,  Thou  givest  inspiration  to  the 
noblest  life.  Thou  not  only  sustainest  us,  but  arousest 
what  is  best  in  us  of  activity  and  excellence.  We  thank 
Thee  that  Thou  hast  so  made  the  world  that  we,  created 
in  thy  image,  may  find  out  its  secrets,  by  patient  thought 
and  faithful  effort ;  may  find  inspiration  and  helpfulness 
on  every  hand,  in  every  object  and  in  every  event. 

We  thank  Thee  for  the  circumstances  under  which 
we  gather  today;  that  we  are  here  to  dedicate  unto  God 
and  to  the  service  of  education  this  beautiful  building,  so 
generously  given,  so  nobly  planned,  so  faithfully  con- 
structed. Bless  us,  Almighty  God,  as  we  thus  come  to 
take  possession  for  Thee  and  for  ourselves  and  for  those 
who  shall  come  after  us.  Yea,  Lord !  and  for  those  who 
have  gone  before  us,  also  a  part  of  that  brotherhood  which 
constitutes  the  College.  We  entreat  thy  blessing  and  thy 
presence,  on  this  day  and  on  all  days  to  come,  upon  the 
life  that  shall  centre  here.  May  these  beautiful  and  ample 
spaces  be  the  scene  of  daily  inspiration  to  all  those  who 
shall  for  years'  pour  in  and  out  at  these  doors.  May  Thy 
presence  be  here  on  all  the  occasions  of  the  future  to  hal- 
low and  restrain  as  well  as  to  inspire.  May  no  unhal- 
lowed words  be  heard  here.  May  noblest,  most  uplifting, 
truths  be  taught  here.  May  those  who  are  taught,  may 
those  who  teach,  may  those  who  carry  the  corporate  bur- 
den of  furnishing  and  directing  instruction,  all,  receive 
Thy  inspiration  and  Thy  grace,  as  they  shall  meet  to  wor- 

133 


ship,  or  to  render  any  service  of  whatever  sort,  within 
these  walls. 

We  thank  Thee  for  the  earliest  and  the  humblest  at- 
tempts to  furnish  education  in  this  place.  We  thank  Thee 
for  the  location  chosen ;  for  the  lowly  beginning ;  for  the 
first  gifts ;  for  the  earliest  sacrifices.  We  thank  Thee  for 
the  years  of  hard  struggle  and  slow  promise.  We  thank 
Thee  for  enemies  as  well  as  for  friends.  We  thank  Thee 
for  the  burdens  borne  all  these  years  by  faithful  trustees 
and  teachers,  and  for  the  loyalty  and  effective  manhood  of 
those  who  have  been  born  of  us  and  are  gone  from  us. 
We  thank  Thee  that  some  of  those  who  have  struggled 
the  hardest  and  the  longest  are  here  today  to  reap  a  por- 
tion of  the  reward. 

We  pray  Thee,  bless  thy  servant,  the  President  of  the 
Trustees,  and  all  other  members  of  the  Board.  Impart 
to  them,  we  beseech  Thee,  with  this  large  increase  of  prop- 
erty and  of  numbers,  a  larger  increase  of  wisdom  and  dis- 
cretion, to  guide  the  affairs  of  this  College  for  the  highest 
good  of  the  students,  for  the  best  welfare  of  the  State  of 
Pennsylvania,  and  for  the  glory  of  God. 

Bless  Thy  servant,  the  President  of  the  College.  We 
thank  Thee  for  the  years  of  service  he  has  rendered  here  ; 
for  his  continued  health  and  strength ;  for  the  strength  of 
his  purpose,  the  unity  of  his  aims,  the  untiringness  of  his 
devotion.  May  he,  in  these  later  years,  live  greatly  to 
enjoy  some  at  least  of  the  fruits  he  has  struggled  for ;  and 
grant  that  he  may  experience  no  decrease  of  strength  in 
these  days  when  his  burdens  are  so  much  increased. 

Do  Thou  bless,  oh  Lord,  the  heads  of  departments 
and  the  instructors.  May  they  be  learners  as  well  as 
teachers,  skillful  to  understand  and  patient  to  bestow  the 
true  wisdom. 


134 


Bless  the  students  of  the  College,  the  graduates,  the 
undergraduates  and  those  who  shall  follow  them.  May 
they  build  for  each  other,  and  with  each  other,  and  with 
the  truth  into  high  living  and  noble  purpose. 

And  now,  we  beseech  Thee,  bless  thy  servants  whom 
Thou  hast  made  thy  agents  in  this  noble  gift.  May  they, 
in  imagination,  look  forward  today,  so  far  as  weak  human 
thought  can,  and  forecast  the  wonderful  results  for 
many  years  to  come  upon  thousands  of  young  people,  of 
the  work  which  they  are  here  doing  for  Thee  today. 
Give  them  health  and  strength  in  their  unusual  position 
of  responsibility  and  teach  them  that  most  steadying  and 
helpful  of  all  lessons,  that  they  are  Thy  stewards,  the  al- 
moners of  Thy  bounty,  channels  for  the  transmission  of 
the  blessing  of  education  and  of  the  manifold  grace  of 
God. 

And  bless,  we  pray  Thee,  all  those  public  men  who, 
in  these  later  days,  have,  in  the  same  manner,  been  made 
Thy  agents  in  bringing  good  to  their  fellowmen,  by  dis- 
tributing their  scores  of  millions  to  further  the  progress 
of  education,  philanthropy,  and  religion.  God  grant  that 
they  and  we  may  not,  in  the  splendor  of  the  gifts,  be 
blinded  to  the  spiritual  uses  for  which  they  are  designed 
of  Thee  and  to  which  they  should  be  devoted. 

And  now  we  would  pray  Thee  to  bless  those  who 
have  toiled  in  dark  mines,  those  who  have  sweat  before  the 
blazing  furnaces,  those  who  have  sweltered  in  the  fields 
under  the  burning  sun,  those  who  have  fired  the  swift 
engine,  those  who  have  beaten  against  storms  at  sea,  those 
who  have  labored  in  whatever  sort  to  produce  those  re- 
sults of  brain  and  hand  which  are  the  only  true  wealth. 
Let  us  not  forget,  wealthy  though  we  are,  wise  though  we 
are,  powerful  though  we  are,  that  without  even  the  hum- 


185 


blest  we  are  nothing ;  for  Thou  hast  made  us  all  laborers 
dependent  upon  each  other  and  honored  to  be  colaborers 
with  Thee. 

Nor  would  we  forget  to  thank  Thee  today  for  the 
toiling,  earnest  age  in  which  we  live;  for  the  purposes 
that  are  at  work,  however  much  they  may  seem  sometimes 
to  be  "at  cross  purposes."  We  thank  Thee  that  they  are 
the  development  of  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God.  They  are  men's  birth-throes,  the  signs  and  tokens 
of  the  federation  of  the  world. 

Cause  us,  therefore,  Almighty  God,  to  humble  our- 
selves before  Thee  today  in  this  beautiful  hall;  to  bow 
down  ourselves  before  the  Majesty  of  the  Son  of  God,  the 
Son  of  Man,  who  gave  Himself  for  us.  Let  us  confess 
our  sins.  Let  us  haste  to  forsake  them.  Let  us  seek 
pardon  and  peace  and  perfection  in  his  name;  to  whom, 
with  the  Father  and  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  be  ascribed,  as 
is  most  due,  all  praise,  might,  majesty,  and  dominion, 
both  now  and  forevermore,  Amen. 

At  the  Dedication  of  the  Schwab  Auditorium, 

June  1 6,  1903. 


O  God,  the  only  source  of  light  and  blessing,  we 
thank  Thee  for  the  material  of  knowledge  which  Thou 
hast  scattered  abroad,  and  for  the  law  of  Wisdom  Thou 
hast  engraved  within  our  hearts. 

Teach  us  the  Master's  principle  of  being  willing  to 
do  God's  will  that  we  may  know  the  nature  of  God's  teach- 
ing. 

Bless  all  those  who  are  in  authority  over  us. 

Still  cause  Thy  holy  Church  to  protect  and  cherish 
the  faith  once  delivered  to  the  saints. 

136 


Illuminate  the  Schools  and  Colleges  and  Universities 
with  Thine  inward  light,  that  those  who  teach  may  be 
taught  of  Thee,  and  those  who  learn  may  be  led  by  the 
Spirit. 

Bless  this  College. 

Counsel  its  Trustees  in  their  important  trust. 

Bless  the  President  who  has  given  to  it  so  many  years 
of  untiring  devotion  and  who,  through  severe  stress,  has 
erected  here  a  monument  of  which  the  State  is  forced  to 
be  proud.  Restore  him  to  such  degree  of  health  as  may 
be  Thy  will  for  him,  and  in  the  hour  of  sickness  or  trial 
may  Thy  faith  not  fail  him. 

Instruct  by  Thine  own  Spirit  those  who  give  instruc- 
tion. 

Help  all  the  undergraduates  to  maintain  the  tone  of 
the  College  by  the  purity  of  their  own  individual  lives ! 

Prosper  the  Alumni  and  give  them  loyalty  to  their 
Alma  Mater. 

With  each  new  class  may  the  College  take  on  new  life 
and,  through  new  eyes,  look  yearly  to  larger  ideals. 

Bless  all  friends  and  patrons  of  the  College  and  all 
our  visitors  who  are  enjoying  with  us  these  June  days. 

May  the  words  of  the  Speaker  on  this  occasion  prove 
a  persuasive  message  to  higher  living. 

Bless,  we  pray  Thee,  the  graduating  class.  This  is 
their  day.  Today  they  receive  the  diplomas,  the  outward 
signs,  of  faithful  work.  May  they,  from  this  day,  enter 
into  life  so  faithfully  and  continue  in  all  good  so  persev- 
eringly,  that,  when  God's  day  shall  come,  the  day  that 
commences  our  larger,  immortal  life,  they  may  hear  Thee 
say :  "Well  done."  And  to  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost 

1ST 


will  we  ascribe  all  praise  and  honor  and  dominion  for- 
ever and  ever.     Amen. 

At  Commencement  on  June  13,  1906. 


Eternal  and  ever  blessed  God,  we  adore  Thee,  the 
Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  of  whom  and  through  whom 
are  all  things.  We  thank  Thee  for  truths  that  confront 
the  sense  and  convince  the  heart,  for  Thy  glory  which 
flames  from  sun  and  star  and  which  is  revealed  in  the 
face  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  made  efficient  by  the  Holy 
Spirit. 

Hear  us,  on  this  anniversary,  Oh  Lord,  and  bless  us. 

Bless  the  friends  and  patrons  and  almuni  gathered 
here  in  reunion,  breathing  this  clear  air  and  delighting 
in  all  this  outward  loveliness.  Bless  'the  honored  mem- 
bers of  other  colleges  who  share  with  us  in  the  enjoyment 
of  this  occasion. 

Bless  especially  this  crowning  work  of  the  year,  these 
rewards  of  labor,  these  duties  ended,  or  to  be  assumed. 

Bless  the  undergraduates  of  this  College  and  fill  them 
with  high  purpose  and  firm  endeavor.  Give  to  the  Fac- 
ulty true  understanding  which  is  the  fear  of  God,  that 
they  may  rightly  teach  others  also. 

Bless  the  Trustees  and  the  Executive  Committee  up- 
on whom  such  heavy  responsibilities  rest  and  have  rested. 
God  reward  them  for  their  fidelity  and  give  them  increase 
of  wisdom  rightly  to  administer  the  trust  put  upon  them 
by  the  State  and  the  National  Government. 

And  now  bless  especially  Thy  servant,  the  incoming 
President,  this  day  to  be  inaugurated.  Give  him  the  loyal 

188 


hearts  of  the  students.  Give  him  the  fidelity  of  his  coad- 
jutors. Give  him  the  hearty  cooperation  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees.  Give  him  the  support  of  this  noble  Common- 
wealth. Give  him  to  seek  of  Thee  that  true  understand- 
ing which  enlightens  the  mind  and  cheers  the  heart.  Give 
him  health,  strength,  and  courage  that  he  may  prove  him- 
self the  very  life  of  the  institution  over  which  he  presides. 

Bless  the  class  of  1908,  who  are  to  receive  today  their 
diplomas  and  to  become  alumni.  God  give  them  strength, 
each  day  in  the  future,  to  write  better  records  and  earn 
new  diplomas  from  the  esteem  of  their  fellows  and  the 
character  of  their  work.  Be  with  them,  we  pray  Thee. 
Hear  us,  Oh  Lord,  for  those  who  are  entering  our  Col- 
lege, the  army  of  our  supporters  who  are  coming  on. 
Make  them  yearly  a  better  as  well  as  a  larger  army. 

Bless  all  the  institutions  of  learning  and  sources  of 
education  throughout  our  land.  Bless  our  State  and  its 
Governor,  our  Nation  and  its  Chief  Executive,  and  hasten 
we  beseech  the  coming  of  Him  who  by  his  spirit  shall 
lead  men  unto  all  truth — our  Lord,  Jesus  Christ,  to  whom 
be  all  praise  and  honor  and  dominion  forever  and  ever, 
Amen. 

At  the  Inauguration  of  President  Sparks,  June,  1908. 


X.     OF  WHAT  USE  IS  AN  OLD  MAN 
ANYHOW? 

Genesis  47:  8  and  9,  and  II  Timothy  4:  7  and  8. 

Of  what  use  is  an  old  man  anyhow?  "A  rather 
strange  question,"  you  will  say,  "to  ask  a  large  body  of 
young  men."  But  I  would  not  ask  it  if  there  were  not 
something  in  it.  It  has  been  in  the  air  since  the  early 
part  of  the  winter. 

I  have  selected,  for  form's  sake,  two  groups  of  words, 
one  from  the  Old,  and  another  from  the  New  Testament. 
The  one  was  spoken  by  a  man  who  was  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  old,  the  other  was  written  by  a  man  of  sixty- 
five.  The  one  was  spoken  in  a  palace,  in  the  presence  of 
a  king,  the  other  was  written  in  a  dungeon  by  a  prisoner 
in  irons,  in  the  presence  of  his  keepers.  Both  are  the 
words  of  men  who  had  lived  with  all  their  might ;  the  one, 
a  shepherd  prince,  had  lived  wholly  for  himself ;  the  other, 
a  tent-maker,  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  had  lived  for 
others,  had  labored  painfully  hard,  had  suffered  much,  had 
travelled  far. 

In  the  47th  of  Genesis  are  these  words :  "Pharaoh 
said  unto  Jacob  how  old  art  thou  ?  And  Jacob  said  unto 
Pharaoh,  the  days  of  the  years  of  my  pilgrimage  are 
one  hundred  and  thirty  years.  Few  and  evil  have  been 
the  days  of  the  years  of  my  life  and  they  have  not  attained 
unto  the  days  of  the  years  of  the  life  of  my  fathers  in 
their  pilgrimage." 

Then  in  the  later  part  of  Paul's  Second  Epistle  to 
Timothy  are  these  words:  "I  have  finished  the  course. 
I  have  kept  the  faith.  Henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me 

140 


a  crown  of  righteousness,  which  the  Lord,  the  righteous 
Judge,  shall  give  me  at  that  day." 

These  words,  so  dissimilar  in  their  spirit,  are,  in  their 
moral  attitude,  exactly  alike.  Both  men  are  reflecting  on 
life.  Life  seems  short  to  both.  To  both,  life  is  a  place 
of  moral  issues,  where  men  do  their  duty  or  fail  of  doing 
it. 

That  old  lives  have  a  supreme  value  in  determining 
all  living  needs  no  arguing.  Why  does  a  man  set  out  an 
orchard  of  varied  fruit  trees  ?  Is  it  because  they  will 
gladden  the  spring  with  the  beauty  and  fragrance  of  their 
blossoms?  Yes,  that  in  part.  Is  it  for  their  developing 
branches,  their  leafy  garlands,  their  symmetry,  size, 
shade?  Yes,  that  also  in  part.  But  the  main  reason  is 
the  fruit  they  are  to  bear.  He  looks  years  ahead  when 
he  will  have  a  large  orchard  or  vineyard  and  a  wealth  of 
fruit.  And  every  season  he  is  careful  for  what  the  end 
of  the  season  is  to  bring. 

One  valuable  fruit  of  an  old  man's  life  is,  that  he  is 
reflective.  He  is  obliged  to  look  back  upon  the  past  and 
draw  lessons  from  it,  lessons  which  are  bound  to  be 
turned  to  the  instruction  of  younger  life. 

It  is  different  with  the  young  man,  the  man  under 
twenty-five.  He  cannot  reflect  much,  because  he  has  had 
but  few  changes  and  only  a  limited  experience.  He  has 
not  had  much  to  think  about.  He  has  not  travelled  much, 
nor  read  much.  He  has  lived,  very  likely,  in  the  same 
place  and  been  subject  to  much  the  same  conditions. 
Death,  he  does  not  know  much  about,  and  to  life  he  has 
been  obliged  to  give  but  little  serious  thought. 

We  do  try  to  instill  into  the  minds  of  young  people 
many  subjects  that  shall  make  them  thoughtful.  But, 
when  all  is  done,  they  are  not,  and  cannot  be,  reflective  as 

141 


old  men  are.  Life  has  to  be  lived  before  it  can  be  medi- 
tated on  or  fully  appreciated.  Home  duties  get  tiresome. 
School  life  is  a  bore.  Sunday  school  and  church  going 
are  insipid.  It  is  because  the  youth  has  not  reflected  on 
what  these  things  mean.  Even  in  cases  where  young 
people  seek  a  higher  education  they  have  not  given  such 
thought  to  it  as  their  more  mature  instructors  have,  and 
those  very  disciplines  which  are  intended  especially  to 
train  them  in  good  habit  and  religious  living,  those  they 
often  resent  most  of  all.  (A  discipline  like  this,  say,  of 
Sunday  worship.)  If  they  were  allowed  to  grow  up  as 
they  would  like,  unadvised,  untutored,  unsteadied,  by  the 
recorded  experience  of  older  men,  society  would  collapse 
by  the  third  generation  and  anarchy  would  prevail. 

But  again,  men  between  twenty-five  and  fifty  do  not 
get  much  chance  to  reflect.  To  most  young  persons 
life  is  a  subject  neither  of  responsibility  nor  of  reflection. 
To  men  in  middle  life,  there  are  responsibilities,  so  many 
as  to  shut  out  almost  entirely  such  reflections  as  are  possi- 
ble to  older  men.  They  do  not  get  time  to  read  the  larger 
and  richer  values  out  of  life.  The  man  of  middle  age 
must  hustle.  His  strength  is  perfect.  Blood  is  at  full 
tide.  Duties  crowd  thick  and  fast.  Money  is  to  be 
made ;  studies  pursued ;  inventions  perfected ;  business  en- 
larged; reputation  and  standing  gained.  The  man  in 
middle  life  is  rubbing  against  other  men.  He  is  in  the 
whirlpool  of  the  world's  work.  Responsibilities  in  home, 
church,  borough,  state,  crowd  upon  him.  Talk  to  such  a 
man  about  time  for  quiet  reflection!  How  can  he  have 
much  time  for  it  ?  Indeed  why  should  the  man  in  middle 
life  look  forward  or  backward  ?  He  must  do  so  to  a  de- 
gree in  order  to  be  safe  and  progressive.  But  to  do  so  as 
an  old  man  can,  in  the  quiet  of  less  pressing  occupation, 

149 


with  several  hours  at  his  command,  these  things  are  not 
for  him.  Perhaps  we  may  say,  they  ought  not  to  be  for 
him. 

It  is  the  active  side  which  he  must  see,  not  as  yet  the 
moral  bearings  of  things.  Immediate  questions  of  right 
and  wrong,  as  of  profit  and  loss,  he  must  reflect  upon  daily. 
But  daily  they  must  have  a  swift  decision.  He  must  catch 
some  precept  from  his  boyhood,  some  warning  that  fell 
years  ago  from  a  mother's  or  a  father's  lips,  a  scrap  from 
Bible,  reader,  or  spelling  book  and  he  must  put  such  senti- 
ment hurriedly  into  practice.  He  is  not  in  a  monk's  cell. 
He  has  not  time  to  be  down  on  his  knees  with  his  Bible 
before  him  probing  his  own  heart,  leisurely  and  undis- 
turbed, until  he  has  found  and  corrected  the  motive  of  his 
life.  No.  With  a  man  of  twenty-five  to  fifty,  it  is  live 
now.  Select  your  good  quickly.  Live  with  all  that  is  in 
you. 

But  now  look  for  a  moment  at  the  old  man,  the  man 
beyond  fifty,  how  is  it  with  him?  The  changes  of  life 
have  gradually  heaped  up  subjects  for  reflection.  How 
many  times  has  the  scene  of  his  life  changed  since  he  was 
a  boy?  How  many  times  has  he  dropped  one  circle  of 
friends  and  taken  up  another?  How  many  times  has  he 
been  lonely  with  the  heartache  under  new  conditions? 
Many  of  his  friends  of  long  ago  have  gone  into  the  un- 
known, and  with  their  going  questions  have  arisen,  pain- 
ful, persistent,  and  hard  to  solve.  The  life  he  has  lived 
is  constantly  going  through  the  mill  of  his  mind. 

I  wish  I  dared  to  sketch  to  an  audience  like  this  the 
reflections  of  the  patriarch,  Jacob.  They  are,  in  part,  of 
too  sacred  a  character. 

But  look  at  this  other  man,  a  prisoner  in  the  Mamer- 
tine,  and  only  a  few  days  from  a  felon's  end.  How  preci- 

143 


ous  Paul's  reflections  must  have  been.  That  day  Christ 
met  him  in  glory  on  the  Damascus  road.  Ananias  coming 
in  to  comfort  him  and  the  scales  falling  from  his  eyes. 
His  summons  to  Antioch,  and  work  in  the  first  great  re- 
vival there.  The  first  missionary  journey  with  Barnabas. 
Scores  of  towns  in  Asia  and  Europe  where  there  were 
brethren  loving  him  and  praying  for  him  and  blessing 
him.  Jerusalem,  Antioch,  and  Philippi,  Thessalonica, 
Beroea  and  Athens,  Corinth,  Ephesus,  and  Rome, — these 
are  but  a  few  of  the  many  towns  where  he  has  seen  men 
leaving  heathenism  and  coming  to  Christ.  He  and  Silas 
are  singing  hymns  at  midnight  in  the  jail  at  Philippi, 
when  suddenly  the  doors  are  opened  and  every  man's 
bonds  are  loosed.  The  prolonged  shouting  for  two  hours 
in  the  theatre  at  Ephesus :  " Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephe- 
sians."  The  more  maddened  cry  at  the  castle  of  Jerusa- 
lem :  "Away  with  such  a  fellow  from  the  earth." 

But  his  own  pen  pictures  are  more  vivid  than  any  one 
else  will  ever  draw :  "Of  the  Jews  five  times  received 
I  forty  stripes  save  one.  Thrice  was  I  beaten  with  rods, 
once  was  I  stoned,  thrice  I  suffered  shipwreck,  a  day  and 
a  night  I  have  been  in  the  deep;  in  journeyings  often,  in 
perils  of  rivers,  of  robbers,  and  of  my  own  country  men ; 
in  perils  of  the  city  and  the  wilderness  and  the  sea;  in 
hunger  and  thirst  and  fasting  and  cold  and  nakedness." 

I  appeal  to  you,  is  it  not  by  such  records,  such  mem- 
ories, such  reflections,  that  younger  men  are  educated  and 
inspired  to  make  a  like  noble  record  ?  And  does  not  an 
old  man,  in  such  reflections,  live  his  life  over  again  and 
live  it  better?  Does  he  not  forget  the  faults  of  the  dead 
and  treat  the  living  with  a  larger  charity?  And  are  not 
such  reflections  on  life  applied,  among  all  civilized  peoples, 
with  untold  profit  to  the  better  education  of  the  young? 

144 


And  would  not  civilization  wither  from  our  earth  were  it 
not  for  the  constant  legacies  of  older  men's  experience  ? 

Now  the  reflections  of  these  two  old  men  bring  to  our 
notice  two  things  for  which  the  soul  is  intensely  eager, 
eager  as  for  nothing  else.  One  is  that  the  soul  loves  to 
live.  What  does  Jacob  say :  "Few  have  the  days  of  the 
years  of  my  life  been."  And  what  does  Paul  say:  "I 
have  finished  the  course."  Both  these  men  are  looking  at 
the  same  thought — life  and  its  brevity.  Jacob  of  course 
looks  wholly  backward.  His  tone  is  despondent.  He  is 
doleful  about  the  life  he  must  leave.  But  Paul  is  joyful 
about  the  life  he  is  to  enter.  His  belief  has  taught  him 
to  look  ahead  and  has  left  him  hopeful.  To  Jacob  the 
hundred  and  thirty  years  are  only  a  few  evil  days.  To 
Paul  life  is  only  a  Greek  race,  four,  six,  eight  laps — 
nearly  over  and  already  the  goal,  the  shouting,  the  laurels 
— endless  life. 

I  say  again:  How  eager  the  soul  is  to  live!  You 
may  meet  a  man,  so  old,  so  disheartened  that  he  declares 
he  would  rather  die  than  live.  Say  to  him :  "We  will 
fix  your  death  then  for  tomorrow  morning  at  nine 
o'clock."  Would  he  be  there?  No!  Not  if  he  were  a 
century  old,  not  if  he  had  lost  sight  and  hearing  and  was 
without  a  friend  in  the  world.  No !  Not  if  he  had  seen 
only  trouble  and  was  now  the  victim  of  some  dreadful  dis- 
ease would  he  prefer  death  to  life.  If  you  think  so  you 
do  not  know  how  eagerly  men  hold  on  to  life. 

And  yet  how  shabbily  men  treat  this  thing  they  call 
life.  Why  do  we  not  ask  earlier  and  more  constantly  what 
living  is,  its  nature,  its  top  value?  We  are  all  the  time 
facing  "the  skull  and  cross-bones."  We  must  die,  and 
all  the  points  in  which  men  differ :  health  and  weakness, 
riches  and  poverty,  high  and  low  estate,  all  vanish  in  the 


145 


presence  of  the  grim  spectre,  death.  Pass  a  few  years, 
and  the  longest  life  is  gone.  You  look  at  these  grey  hairs 
and  you  say,  "his  career  will  soon  be  ended."  I  look  at 
you,  in  turn,  and  with  no  humor,  no  sarcasm,  I  say: 
"Day  after  tomorrow,  you  too  will  be  grey-headed."  Just 
a  few  days — it  will  surprise  you  how  few — and  then,  as 
we  say,  the  laugh  will  be  on  you. 

You,  in  your  youth,  are  like  the  man,  who,  for  the 
first  time,  has  a  good  square  bank  account  and  a  cheque 
book.  How  comfortable  it  is  to  keep  drawing  out !  How 
important  a  man  feels !  "Five  thousand  dollars !"  Why 
should  he  stop  to  find  the  remainder  after  writing  every 
check?  But,  ah,  there  comes  a  day  when  he  thinks  he 
will  add  them  and  strike  the  balance.  He  has  left  a  bare 
hundred  dollars.  The  sweat  stands  in  beads  on  his  brow. 
Where  has  all  that  money  gone  ?  Every  cent  of  that  hun- 
dred dollars  is  more  valuable  in  his  sight  now  than  every 
dollar  of  the  five  thousand  was. 

Many  men  treat  life  in  just  that  way  until  a  bare 
fragment  of  it  is  left,  and  in  that  fragment  they  must 
learn,  if  ever  they  are  to  learn,  what  life  means,  and 
whether  it  has  relations  to  other  life  in  other  worlds.  And 
is  it  not  sensible  for  a  man  to  face  early  the  question, 
"how  shall  I  live?"  rather  than  be  confronted  with  the 
question,  "why  must  I  die  ?"  Jacob  set  the  question  aside. 
He  had  never  deeply  pondered  it.  Twenty,  forty,  eighty, 
one  hundred  and  thirty,  years  he  had  lived.  He  had 
nearly  exhausted  his  bank  account.  And  now  he  thinks 
it  has  been  short.  He  calls  it  a  few  days,  and  evil  days 
at  that,  and  yet  it  was  nearly  fifty  thousand  days. 

But  do  not  be  surprised  that  he  calls  them  few  and 
evil.  Live  fifty,  a  hundred  years,  more;  and  unless  you 
have  learned  how  to  live,  life  will  seem  brief.  Jacob 


146 


might  have  learned  some  of  the  same  lessons  Paul  had 
learned.  There  was  the  same  God  in  heaven.  There 
were  the  same  possibilities  to  faith.  There  was  the  same 
opportunity  and  need  for  prayer.  There  was  the  same 
opening  of  work  and  thought  for  others — that  door  which 
opens  to  nobler  graces,  none  of  which  he  possessed.  Why 
did  not  Jacob  contribute  something  to  the  solving  of  this 
problem  of  life  here  and,  possibly,  hereafter?  Certainly 
Paul  was  not  more  eager  for  life  than  Jacob.  The  patri- 
arch is  as  tenacious  of  it  as  the  apostle. 

I  come  now  to  the  other  thing  I  had  to  say  of  the 
soul.  It  is  eager  for  good.  It  loves  to  be  good.  Ob- 
serve yourself  closely  and  you  will  find  that  the  word 
"good"  is  on  your  lips  perhaps  as  much  as  any  other 
word.  Every  reasonable  man  knows  that  if  you  can  be 
really  good  you  will  be  truly  happy.  Just  as  food,  air, 
water  keep  the  body  toned  in  life  and  purity,  so  precisely 
is  goodness  the  tone,  the  life,  of  the  soul. 

And  yet — it  is  a  strange  thing — most  men  fail  of  be- 
ing good.  There  is  only  now  and  then  a  man  who  comes 
to  the  close  of  life  whose  regrets  are  not  exactly  like 
Jacob's.  "EVll  have  been  the  days  of  the  years  of  my 
pilgrimage" — I  am  sure  I  say  that.  I  feel  that.  It  is 
what  most  men  feel. 

A  man's  eagerness  for  life  grows  in  proportion  to  his 
eagerness  for  goodness.  Only  as  he  is  good,  does  he 
really  live.  Goodness  is  the  most  pure,  the  most  gener- 
ous, the  most  comprehensive  of  all  moral  qualities.  They 
are  all  embraced  under  it.  It  includes  the  thought  of 
God ;  obedience  to  the  calls  of  conscience ;  thoughtf ulness 
and  charity  towards  my  neighbor ;  the  rational  use  of  my 
time  and  all  my  powers  and  privileges. 


H7 


But  look  with  me  for  a  moment  at  Jacob.  There  is 
no  life  pictured  in  the  Holy  Book  that  is  more  selfish.  I 
am  not  denying  to  Jacob  strong,  commanding  qualities. 
It  is  not  out  of  place  to  speak  of  God  as  the  God  of  Abra- 
ham, Isaac,  and  Jacob.  But  look  at  Jacob.  He  cheats 
his  own  brother  of  his  birthright.  He  lies  to  his  aged 
father  in  order  to  rob  the  same  brother  of  his  blessing. 
He  flees  from  home  under  a  lying  pretext.  Some  people 
incline  to  think  that  Jacob  was  converted  when  he  saw 
the  vision  at  Bethel,  but  his  prayer  at  Bethel  is  a  selfish 
man's  prayer.  And  long  after  Bethel  he  cheats  his 
father-in-law  of  the  best  of  his  cattle. 

This  man  is  always  thinking  how  Jacob's  flocks  shall 
prosper.  During  all  his  prime  he  sows  the  seeds  of  sel- 
fishness, and  the  reflections  of  his  later  days  are  melan- 
choly and  regret.  His  thoughts  look  only  backward  and 
upon  what  seems  a  troubled  dream. 

What  a  swift  retribution  had  come  to  him  when 
Joseph  was  reported  missing.  How  that  loss  burned 
deeper  and  deeper  into  his  soul  for  years.  Jacob  had  put 
the  finishing  touches  on  Joseph.  He  had  given  special 
attention  to  the  child  of  his  darling  Rachel.  He  had 
brought  the  boy  up  to  love  God  without  doubt  or  ques- 
tioning. Joseph's  life  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  in  old 
Testament  literature.  A  business  man  would  say  that 
Joseph's  life  was  Jacob's  largest,  perhaps  his  only,  asset. 
But  when  the  tragedy  of  Joseph's  loss  fell  upon  him, 
never  afterwards  did  hope  send  a  ray  of  sunshine  across 
his  face.  These  words  here  are  spoken  as  he  stands  in 
the  presence  of  the  king,  and  in  the  presence  of  his  son 
second  only  to  the  king.  But  he  has  brooded  so  long  on 
the  loss  of  Joseph  that  no  power  can  raise  him  out  of  his 
settled  melancholy,  "Few  and  evil  have  been  my  days," 


148 


were  the  words  of  his  lament.  Why,  the  smile  of  God, 
like  sunshine  after  showers,  ought  to  have  thrown  sheen, 
and  color  and  rainbows  over  his  closing  life.  He  ought 
to  have  looked  up  and  exclaimed :  "  Goodness  and  mercy 
have  followed  me,  all  the  days  of  my  life."  But  selfish- 
ness had  stabbed  his  optimism.  He  had  taught  his  boy 
the  comforts  of  Providence  which  he  himself  had  failed 
to  learn. 

And  why  should  an  older  man  expect  the  fruits  of 
goodness  and  life,  if  his  younger  and  his  stronger  days 
have  failed  to  foster  them?  If  we  attach  our  hearts' 
affection  solely  to  the  things  of  this  life  and  never  look  at 
their  bearing  to  the  things  that  may  be  beyond,  why 
should  not  our  hearts  be  torn  when  they  are  taken  from 
us  ?  The  man  who  all  the  time  thinks  of  himself  and  his 
only;  the  man  whose  time  is  spent  in  building  a  fortune 
and  a  future  for  himself  and  possibly  taking  plenty  of 
advantage  of  others  in  order  to  do  it ;  who  is  not  scrupu- 
lous to  do  a  sharp  thing  if  it  will  add  to  his  stock 
of  money  or  influence,  if  this  world  is  all  to  him,  why 
should  he  not  be  dazed  as  it  recedes  from  his  view  ?  Such 
a  man  has  never  sought  after  the  springs  of  immortal 
life — goodness  and  the  rich  spiritual  harvests  that  come 
of  it.  He  has  never  fostered  the  love  of  God.  He  has 
never  dealt  tenderly  with  his  fellows  as  Sons  of  God. 

Jacob's  nature  loved  "goods,"  Paul's  loved  "good." 
There  is  the  difference.  One  followed  the  naturally  sel- 
fish nature.  The  other  patterned  after  the  nature  of 
Christ.  The  one  accumulated  everything  and  in  the  end 
had  nothing.  The  one  surrendered  everything  and  found 
all. 

Both  men  embody  one  and  the  same  principle,  one 
stated  by  our  Saviour  and  embodied  in  every  act  and  word 

149 


of  his  life:     "Whosoever  saveth  his  life  shall  lose  it,  and 
whosoever  loseth  his  life  shall  keep  it  unto  life  eternal." 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  May  21,  1905. 


XI.     ACADEMIC  FOUNDATIONS 

"Laying  up  in  store  for  themselves  a  good  foundation  against 
the  time  to  come,  that  they  may  lay  hold  on  the  life  which  is  life 
indeed."  I  Timothy  6:  19.  American  Revised  Version. 

If  a  person  were  brought  blindfolded  into  our  daily 
chapel  and  Sunday  services  here,  he  would,  commonly, 
be  unable  to  distinguish  that  the  gathering  was  a  college 
gathering  or  even  a  gathering  of  young  men  so  seldom  is 
the  address  made  to  you  as  men  who  are  young,  who  are 
in  a  sense  separate  from  life  of  the  world,  and  in  a  state 
of  preparation  for  that  life;  so  constantly  are  you  ad- 
dressed as  men,  men  on  whom  rest  now  the  responsibili- 
ties of  life. 

On  this  first  occasion  of  our  college  year,  I  shall  de- 
part from  our  general  custom  in  this  respect  and  shall 
address  you  as  college  men,  and  in  doing  so  I  shall  ask 
you  to  consider  with  me  this  question:  "What  is  the 
nature  of  those  academic  opportunities  which  are  pre- 
sented to  men  of  your  years,  to  men  who,  like  you,  come 
here  or  elsewhere  for  a  something  which  seems  of  special 
value?" 

There  are  in  Pennsylvania  nearly  seven  millions  of 
people.  There  are  in  the  state  forty  higher  institutions 
of  learning,  colleges  or  universities  for  men  or  women. 
These  have  on  their  lists  something  less  than  twenty  thou- 
sand names.  We  shall  speak  not  far  from  the  facts  if 


150 


we  say  that  one  person  in  three  hundred  and  fifty  of  our 
state  is  enrolled  in  some  college  either  in  the  state  or  out 
of  it.  The  college  students,  as  you  will  see,  are  a  small 
proportion. 

What  are  the  incitements,  the  advantages,  which  lead 
these  few  to  go  to  college,  to  spend  their  four  years  of 
high  school  preparation,  and  their  four  years  in  college, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  more  extended  education  in  profes- 
sional schools  ?  There  surely  ought  to  be  some  very  sub- 
stantial reasons  why  one  man  in  every  three  hundred 
foregoes  for  several  years  his  opportunities  of  learning  a 
trade,  of  getting  practically  established  in  some  profes- 
sion or  business.  There  ought  to  be  some  very  convinc- 
ing arguments  indeed  to  turn  him  from  the  paths  of  en- 
terprise now  open  to  the  multitudes  of  Americans,  to 
cause  him  to  tread  the  quiet  paths  of  the  recluse,  to  cause 
him  to  wait  for  years,  to  cause  him  to  put  out  money 
without  any  immediate  return,  or  hope  of  return.  So 
that  we  are  justified  in  asking:  "What  opportunities  are 
offered  him  to  warrant  such  expense  and  delay?" 

Look  this  fact  also  in  the  face.  For  every  man  who 
succeeds  because  he  has  been  to  college,  there  are  not  less 
than  fifty  men  who  succeed  equally  well,  to  all  appear- 
ance, without  the  college.  With  a  little  pains  you  can 
make  out  a  long  list  of  names  of  college  men  who  have 
made  a  brilliant  success  in  all  the  callings  and  professions 
of  life,  but  with  no  more  trouble  you  can  make  a  list 
equally  long  of  non-college  men  whose  success  has  been 
as  great.  A  comparison  of  the  two  lists  might  almost 
lead  you  to  say,  "Where  is  the  advantage  in  a  so-called 
college  course?" 

One  incident  might  be  recited  which  is  really  start- 
ling. Four  men  have,  within  a  few  years,  set  in  motion 

151 


or  given  the  impetus  to  the  production  of  steel,  and  this 
on  so  vast  a  scale  as  to  affect  all  the  other  industries  of 
the  world.  None  of  those  four  men — Frederick  Krupp, 
Henry  Bessemer,  Andrew  Carnegie,  Charles  M.  Schwab 
— has  been  a  college  educated  man.  Startling  attention 
was  called  to  these  four  men  and  to  the  influences,  good 
or  bad,  set  in  motion  by  them  in  a  recent  number  of  the 
Philadelphia  Evening  Bulletin.  It  is  an  account  that 
should  set  any  college  man  to  thinking.  Any  man  who 
is  so  foolish  as  to  consider  a  college  education  indispensa- 
ble, or  to  coddle  himself  because  he  is  a  college  man, 
ought  to  read  that  account  and  feel  humbled. 

.  But  the  success  of  men  who  have  been  successful 
without  the  college,  men  who  because  of  their  success 
sometimes  speak  slightingly  of  the  college,  the  succcess  of 
such  self-educated  men  has  not  diminished  in  the  least 
the  numbers  of  those  who  are  attending  college  or  who 
will  attend  in  the  future.  So  that  still  there  is  forced  on 
us  the  question :  What  is  the  nature  of  those  opportuni- 
ties which  are  given  to  a  man  at  college,  such  apparently 
that  they  are  appraised  at  an  almost  inestimable  value, 
such  furthermore  that  any  self-made  man,  if  it  were  possi- 
ble to  retrace  his  steps,  would  freely  embrace? 

As  preliminary  to  two  or  three  things  which  I  shall 
say  later  let  me  now  say  this :  That  young  men  do  rrot 
go  to  college  to  complete  their  education.  They  go  there 
to  lay  the  ground  plan  of  it.  They  go  there  not  to  build 
up  a  structure  of  more  or  less  varied  knowledge ;  they  go 
there  to  find  out  or  to  lay  out  the  foundation  lines  on 
which  all  later  knowledge  and  conduct  may  be  laid,  and 
laid  properly  and  consistently. 

I  see  before  me  here  this  morning  one  or  two  men 
who  were  present  when  Mr.  Alexander  fixed  the  ground- 


152 


plan  of  this  building  in  which  we  are  now  gathered.  It 
was  done  with  a  carpenter's  measuring  line.  It  was  done 
with  the  utmost  care.  Every  line  was  exactly  the  length 
called  for  in  the  architect's  drawing.  Every  line  crossed 
every  other  line  exactly  at  the  angle  called  for  in  the  blue- 
prints. The  whole  ground  plan  was  fixed  exactly  as  the 
architect  had  arranged  for  with  relation  to  the  other 
buildings  and  walks  in  the  immediate  vicinity.  All  these 
lines  and  all  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  other 
lines  already  fixed,  did  not  vary  a  hair's-breadth  from 
what  the  specifications  called  for.  And  can  you  not  see 
what  a  difference  it  would  have  made  if  they  had  ? 

Any  imperfection  in  the  laying  of  the  ground  plan 
of  this  noble  building  would  have  meant  lack  of  symmetry 
somewhere  before  the  building  was  completed.  But  as  it 
is,  part  answers  absolutely  to  its  opposite  part.  Line  is 
perpendicular  or  horizontal  to  its  neighbor  line.  You 
cannot  put  your  eye  anywhere  and  find  a  defect.  And  all 
that  because  of  the  exactness  with  which  the  original 
ground  lines  were  laid.  "O  any  fool  could  do  that,"  you 
might  have  said,  if  you  had  seen  it  done.  Any  fool  could 
more  easily  rear  this  superstructure,  any  or  all  of  it,  than 
he  could  do  so  apparently  simple  a  thing  as  to  lay  the 
ground  plan,  so  important  a  thing  was  that ! 

You  are  here  to  lay  a  ground  plan  somewhat  similar. 
You  have  come  here  to  learn  to  lay  emphasis  on  a  few 
great  leading  principles  which  are  intended  to  dominate 
and  which  should  control  your  after  life.  The  things 
you  are  to  learn,  the  subjects  or  matters  which  you  are  to 
store  away  in  your  memory,  are  as  the  small  dust  of  the 
balance  when  compared  to  the  cultivation  of  those  lead- 
ing principles  which  underlie  all  true  living.  I  will  state 

153 


what  seems  to  me  those  ground  lines  and  state  them  in 
the  order  of  their  importance. 

First,  you  are  here  to  form  habits  of  mental  indus- 
try. Second,  you  are  here  to  confirm  you  loyalty  to 
truth.  Third,  you  are  here  that  you  may  learn  to  put 
noble  principles  into  practical  applications. 

Lay  this  principle  down  first  then,  that  you  must 
learn  to  be  mentally  industrious.  All  of  us  are  gifted 
with  minds,  but  the  feeble  use  that  the  great  majority  of 
us  make  of  them  is  quite  deplorable.  Nine  men  in  ten 
are  not  mentally  industrious  in  any  such  sense  as  it  is 
their  privilege  to  be.  A  college  education,  if  it  does  any- 
thing for  a  man,  does  this :  It  wakes  him  up  to  the  fact 
that  he  has  a  mind.  It  arouses  him  to  see  the  inner 
workings  of  his  own  mind.  When  his  better  tastes  begin 
to  be  aroused,  when  his  reasoning  faculty  displays  itself 
for  the  first  time  in  the  easy  problems  of  algebra  or 
geometry,  when  poetry  makes  its  peculiar  appeal  to  him, 
and  oratory  arouses  him,  and  scientific  or  mechanical  ob- 
servations and  laws  thrill  and  inspire  him,  then  it  is  that 
he  awakes  to  see  the  value  of  mental  industry,  the  value 
and  necessity  for  mental  alertness  on  his  own  part.  If 
he  reads  books  he  marvels  at  the  direct  products  that  have 
fruited  from  the  human  mind.  If  he  gives  his  attention 
to  the  problems  that  daily  affect  our  human  life,  he  is 
obliged  to  see  that  nothing  has  value  except  in  so  far  as 
the  human  mind,  human  thinking,  brings  value  to  it.  In 
proportion  as  the  mind  sees  and  foresees  does  it  impart 
value  into  things,  things  spiritual  as  well  as  things  com- 
mercial. 

I  saw  a  piece  of  land,  the  other  day,  situated  by  the 
seashore,  not  more  than  four  thousand  square  feet  in 
dimensions,  pure  sand  all  of  it  and  nothing  but  sand,  as 

154 


far  down  as  you  had  a  mind  to  dig,  and  that  piece  had 
just  been  sold  for  thirty  thousand  dollars.  A  year  or 
less  ago  there  was  no  apparent  value  in  it.  But  some 
mentally  industrious  land  speculators  held  a  conference 
with  some  other  men,  equally  mentally  industrious,  who 
ran  a  trolley  line.  Together  they  thought  out  a  situation, 
and  together  thought  a  value  into  these  valueless  things. 
Take  a  sample  of  the  results  within  five  or  six  years  of 
such  mental  industry.  Here  is  a  town ;  here  already  are 
thousands  of  permanent  population,  fine  streets,  beautiful 
homes,  noble  churches,  school  houses,  banks  and  other 
public  buildings,  all  the  result  of  that  original  mental  in- 
dustry on  the  part  of  the  speculators  and  the  trolley  men. 
It  has  infinite  results  if  you  cared  to  follow  them  out. 

One  man  rides  over  the  sage-bush  region  of  Utah 
and  Idaho  and  comes  to  a  quick  conclusion  as  he  looks 
out  of  the  car  window.  "This  is  hideous.  This  is  the 
real  desert.  Nothing  will  grow  here."  He  draws  the 
conclusion,  unlocks  his  grip  and  settles  down  to  reading 
the  last  cheap  novel.  That  is  your  mentally  lazy  man. 
But  the  mentally  industrious  man  comes  along.  He  finds 
an  ample  river  flowing  through  this  country.  He  taps 
the  stream  and  in  a  box,  or  sluice,  or  trench  he  carries  the 
water  by  gradual  grade  along  the  hill  slopes.  He  irri- 
gates this  alkali  soil.  Where  there  promised  to  be  noth- 
ing there  are  now  interminable  acres  covered  with  or- 
chards of  peaches  and  apricots  and  prunes.  There  are 
apples  that  will  sell  in  the  London  markets  for  a  shilling 
apiece.  Capital,  always  mentally  industrious  by  the  way, 
learns  of  the  possibilities  of  increase  and  rushes  in  to  in- 
vest, until  in  a  few  months  flourishing  times  spring  up 
out  of  the  desert  and  the  good-for-nothing  land  is  selling 
by  the  acre  at  one  thousand  dollars  and  upwards. 


155 


And  in  our  country  as  in  no  other  on  the  face  of  the 
globe  do  there  open  up  opportunities  for  mental  industry. 
Out  of  the  soil  and  the  climate  spring  problems  for  the 
comfort  and  enrichment  of  every  man  who  will  think. 
Are  these  opportunities  confined  to  any  one  class  of  men  ? 
A  brief  moment  of  thought  will  tell  you  no.  They  con- 
cern all  classes  and  all  callings  and  all  professions :  men- 
tal industry  on  the  part  of  the  adventurer  and  pioneer; 
mental  industry  on  the  part  of  the  civil  engineer  and  the 
railroad  man ;  mental  industry  on  the  part  of  the  carpen- 
ter and  builder,  and  farmer,  and  trader.  But  if  on  the 
part  of  these, — equal  mental  alertness  on  the  part  of  the 
statesman,  the  missionary,  the  preacher,  the  teacher,  the 
philanthropist,  the  literary  man,  the  physician,  the  lawyer 
and  of  the  countless  army  of  skilled  and  unskilled  labor- 
ers. "America  is  but  another  name  for  opportunity," 
and  the  man  whose  mind  is  actively  at  work  on  the  varied 
problems  that  will  naturally  confront  him  will  find  ample 
material  for  success  close  to  his  hand  whatever  calling  he 
may  elect  to  follow.  Depend  upon  it,  you  could  not 
choose  wrongly  today,  whatever  calling  you  chose,  what- 
ever humblest  business  you  took  up,  provided  you  were 
mentally  industrious  in  it. 

I  said  that  you  are  here,  in  the  second  place,  to  con- 
firm your  loyalty  to  truth.  "What  is  truth,  said  jesting 
Pilate,  and  would  not  stay  for  an  answer."  If  any  teach- 
er were  confronted  with  the  question,  what  is  truth,  he 
would  find  it  hard,  even  at  this  late  date,  to  answer.  But 
are  there  not  certain  great  general  ideas  which  all  the 
world  really  believes  and  acts  upon,  even  though  their 
beliefs  may  take  varied  form?  Does  not  common  sense 
lay  hold  on  certain  principles  as  in  constant  operation,  on 
certain  causes  as  being  at  the  foundation  of  things? 

156 


And  are  we  not  to  believe  those  few  great  truths  which 
find  a  consensus,  which  are  in  real  harmony,  everywhere 
among  men  ?  To  those  who  have  been  reared  under  our 
civilization  those  truths  are,  in  the  main,  the  following: 
that  an  eternal,  invisible  God  made  all  things  and  is  over 
all;  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  finest  example  in  word  or 
deed  of  any  life  thus  far  lived  on  the  earth ;  that  the  Bible 
is  by  all  means  the  richest  book  now  in  existence  on  the 
whole  subject  of  what  we  call  divine  Providence,  teaching 
it  by  numerous  examples  as  no  other  book  does  and  incul- 
cating it  by  precepts  and  incidents  which  are  as  interest- 
ing as  they  are  convincing;  that  according  to  that  book 
he  who  obeys  the  voice  of  conscience  and  the  law  of  God 
shall  live;  that  he  who  follows  the  example  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  he  alone,  shall  lay  hold  upon  the  life  which 
is  the  life  indeed. 

Now  one  of  these  essential  lines  that  you  are  to  lay 
down  in  your  college  days,  and  that  you  have  a  golden  op- 
portunity of  laying  down  properly  and  well,  is  this  line  of 
reverence  for  these  old  and  long  established  truths.  Let 
them  become  ingrained  in  your  nature.  That  is  the  in- 
tention of  the  daily  morning  readings  of  the  Bible.  That 
is  the  intention  of  these  services  held  here  on  the  Lord's 
day.  They  are  to  confirm  and  strengthen  in  you  that 
loyalty  to  truth  which  has  been  instilled  into  you  at  home 
ever  since  you  were  born. 

You  noticed,  on  the  opening  of  college  the  other  day, 
how  our  President,  in  a  few  words,  laid  emphasis  on  all 
those  fundamental  truths  to  which  I  have  referred  and 
which  are  contained  in  it.  He  did  it,  no  doubt,  that  you 
might  understand  that  the  Pennsylvania  State  College 
stands  on  the  side  of  and  is  in  harmony  with  all  the  truths 
herein  contained. 


157 


It  is  not  uncommon  for  one  to  meet  with  cases  of 
flippancy  and  shallow  irreverence.  Two  weeks  ago  to- 
night I  fell  in  with  a  person  who  said :  "I  don't  believe 
in  God,  or  the  Bible.  I  cannot  accept  the  divinity  of 
Jesus  Christ.  There  is  no  power  or  use  in  prayer."  As 
soon  as  I  could,  for  the  expressions  came  out  with  mark- 
ed rapidity,  I  said :  "Why  you  will  be  a  faddist,  if  you 
don't  look  out.  You  are  getting  into  what  men  call  a 
cranky  state.  There  surely  is  something,"  I  said,  "that 
you  do  believe,  why  don't  you  start  with  that,  settle 
down  on  that?  You  are  acquainted  with  the  Lord's 
prayer,  aren't  you?"  "Yes."  "Could  you  write  a  better 
one?"  "No."  "You  know  that  psalm  which  begins 
"the  Lord  is  my  Shepherd?"  "Yes,  I  am  not  unfamiliar 
with  it."  "Have  you  any  criticism  to  offer  on  it?" 
"No."  "Do  you  recall  certain  scraps  of  the  sayings  of 
Jesus  about  'laying  up  treasure  in  heaven'  and  about 
'building  the  house  on  the  rock  and  not  on  the  sand  ?' " 
"Yes."  "Are  not  those  sensible  utterances?"  "Yes." 
"You  remember  Paul's  great  classic  on  charity?"  "I 
ought  to,  for  I  have  heard  it  read  a  great  many  times." 
"Is  there  a  flaw  in  it?  Would  the  world  be  improved 
any  if  men  lived  according  to  it?"  "No  doubt  of  it." 
"Well  now,"  I  said,  "there  are  some  things  that  you  do 
believe,  why  under  heaven  don't  you  let  go,  for  the  pres- 
ent, the  things  that  puzzle  you,  the  things  that  you  can't 
believe  and  wont  believe?"  But  I  found  in  my  opponent 
a  perverseness  of  mind  that  was  as  stubborn  and  mulish 
as  it  could  be,  and  that  had  not  yielded  in  the  least  to  what 
it  had  admitted  was  plain  common  sense.  In  a  half  hour 
or  so,  as  our  chat  continued,  my  opponent  came  out  with 
some  very  outspoken  assertions  in  regard  to  Thackeray. 
He  declared  that  no  writer  has  looked  upon  human  life 


158 


more  sanely,  or  studied  and  understood  its  problems  more 
deeply,  or  could  be  followed  more  safely  as  a  guide  on  all 
great  moral  and  religious  questions.  And  then  I  said : 
"But  have  you  noticed  how  saturated  Thackeray  is,  in 
every  volume  he  has  written,  with  the  Bible  and  with  the 
homely  principles  it  lays  down  ?"  "Yes,  I  have  and  it  has 
often  puzzled  me."  And  here  ended  a  conversation 
which  revealed  a  mind  that  had  lost  or  claimed  to  have 
lost  all  its  regard  for  the  great  fundamentals  of  truth, 
just  because  of  a  few  puzzling  questions  with  which  all 
such  truths  must  of  necessity  be  surrounded  because  of 
their  very  nature. 

Let  us,  my  friends,  lay  down  the  law  and  lay  it  down 
constantly,  that  those  great  truths  which  have  been  men- 
tioned are  to  be  revered  during  our  growing  life,  and  that 
as  we  revere  them,  we  shall  grow  into  the  highest,  noblest 
manhood. 

I  have  not  left  myself  time  to  do  much  more  than  to 
say,  as  a  third  point,  that  another  of  your  precious  aca- 
demic opportunities  is  to  learn  to  put  noble  principles  into 
practical  application.  To  have  noble  principles  in  the 
head  and  in  the  heart  is  one  thing,  to  put  them  into  prac- 
tical application  in  daily  life  is  quite  another  thing.  In 
matters  that  are  not  spiritual  or  moral,  we  are  wise  in  this 
regard  and  each  of  us  is  wise  and  shrewd  to  make  use  of 
the  very  best  of  all  the  means  at  his  command.  But 
how  is  it  in  moral  matters,  in  spiritual  matters?  Men 
slide  into  habits  that  ruin  body  and  soul.  They  know  a 
thing  is  not  good  for  them.  They  know  it  is  ruinous  to 
body  and  soul,  and  yet  they  are  as  eager  after  it  as  the 
moth  for  the  flame.  And  if  a  fad  of  any  sort  will  shield 
and  protect  them  in  an  evil  or  low  practice,  they  will 
adopt  the  fad  and  let  the  real  sane  sensible  truth  go  to 
the  wind. 

159 


What  are  these  noble  principles  which  we  worship 
so  in  theory?  They  are  nothing  but  truths  which  men 
have  proven  so  in  actual  practice,  and  their  golden  value 
can  never  be  discovered  until  they  are  reduced  to  practice 
again  by  us.  The  truth  I  preach  or  the  principle  I  lay 
down  can  have  no  value  to  you,  if  you  see  me  violate  it  in 
my  own  life.  To  win  you  to  noble  principle,  I  must  my- 
self be  an  embodiment  of  that  principle. 

But  the  limit  of  my  time  orders  me  to  stop. 

College  opportunities  are  such  as  to  awaken  in  all 
true  men  their  conscious  manhood.  College  life  gives 
you  privileges  and  throws  you  into  personal  associations 
by  which  the  life  can  be  grandly  enriched  as  in  no  other 
way.  But  college  life  is  not  a  time  to  lay  up  stores  of 
knowledge,  as  I  have  said.  It  is  the  time  to  lay  strong 
emphasis  on  the  elements  of  all  knowledge,  and,  as  I  have 
said,  it  is  the  time  to  learn  to  work  hard  with  our  mind, 
the  time  not  to  be  flippant  with  truth  'but  to  revere  it,  the 
time  to  act  in  our  daily  life  and  in  the  formation  of  daily 
habits  under  the  motive  and  inspiration  of  such  principles 
as  the  wisdom  and  experience  of  men  have  declared  are 
for  our  good  as  they  are  for  the  good  of  all  men.  By 
doing  these  things  you  will  be  laying  up  in  store  for 
yourselves  a  good  foundation  against  the  time  to  come. 
Dr.  Pritchett,  of  the  School  of  Technology,  in  an  address 
delivered  before  the  University  of  Michigan  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1905,  said,  among  other  things,  this :  "Today  we 
need,  in  my  judgment,  to  concern  ourselves  in  the  uni- 
versity with  the  spiritual  side  of  administration.  The 
first  purpose  of  the  University  is  not  to  further  industrial 
development  or  to  increase  the  wealth  of  a  state,  it  is  the 
development  of  the  intellectual  and  the  spiritual  life." 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  September  17,  1905. 


160 


XII.     A  MAN  IS  WORTH  WHAT  HE  CAN 
THINK 

"Keep  thy  heart  with    all  diligence;    for    out    of  it    are    the 
issues  of  life."— Proverbs  4:23. 

These  words  mean  "look  out  for  your  emotional 
nature  and  the  words  and  acts  that  result  from  it,  because 
of  the  influence,  for  good  or  evil,  upon  those  around  you." 

But  it  would  not  be  altogether  out  of  the  way  for 
us  to  substitute  here  the  word  "mind"  for  the  word 
"heart."  Then  the  words  would  read :  "Above  all  else 
that  you  guard,  guard  your  mind,  because  all  that  results 
in  life  results  from  that."  "As  a  man  thinketh  so  is  he," 
is  often  quoted  as  a  text  of  scripture.  There  is  no  such 
text.  But  if  there  were,  it  would  be  about  the  equivalent 
of  what  I  have  just  read  and  it  would  mean  that  a  man 
is  worth  what  he  can  think.  A  man  is  not  of  value  be- 
cause of  his  wealth  or  his  apparent  influence.  He  is  of 
value  in  proportion  as  he  can  think  with  profit  and  safety 
to  his  fellows.  It  is  this  alone  which  gives  character  or 
determines  fortune. 

It  is  not  by  good  luck  that  a  man  gets  as  rich  as  the 
elder  Vanderbilt,  or  leads  the  merchant  princes  of  the 
world  as  did  the  late  Marshall  Field.  Isaac  Rich  used  to 
peddle  fish  in  a  wheelbarrow  through  the  streets  of  Bos- 
ton. It  was  not  luck  that  enabled  him  later  to  buy  up  all 
the  fish  caught  from  Eastport,  Maine,  to  Point  Judith, 
Rhode  Island,  to  control  the  fish-market,  and  later  to 
found  what  has  become  a  great  university  in  the  city  of 
Boston  and  to  die  a  millionaire.  Mr.  Carnegie's  wealth 
is  not  a  windfall.  A  property  he  purchased  not  many 
miles  from  here  rose  in  value  ten  fold.  Why?  Because 
he  put  thought  into  it. 


161 


Every  man  is  a  centre  of  thinking.  He  is  always 
thinking,  asleep  or  awake,  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave. 
And  education,  with  the  inspiration  and  help  of  religion, 
is  engaged  in  making  men  thoughtful,  so  that  they  will 
gradually  think  accurately  and  with  rapidity,  with  purity 
and  originality.  If  you  are  properly  educated,  these  are 
your  stock  in  trade,  your  friends,  your  wealth,  your  pres- 
tige. 

The  thoughtful  man  does  not  wait  to  find  employ- 
ment. He  makes  it.  Did  you  ever  read  of  any  one  in  a 
harder  fix  than  Robinson  Crusoe?  He  set  his  brain  to 
work  to  find  rescue,  and  he  found  comfort  and  happiness. 
He  did  some  bungling  thinking,  but  he  got  himself  out  of 
a  hole.  He  shows  us  that  a  man  can  think  himself  into 
all  the  necessaries  of  life,  all  the  comforts  of  home,  all 
the  consolations  of  religion,  although  he  is  alone  with  no 
man  to  advise  him. 

I  need  not  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  the 
human  mind  is  here  and  there  and  everywhere  at  the 
same  moment :  among  the  stars,  under  the  sea,  across  the 
ocean,  back  in  distant  antiquity,  or  far  off  into  the  future. 
It  is  this  horse  broke  loose  that  is  to  be  controlled. 

The  Spartan  hero,  Menelaus,  was  told  that  if  he 
caught  the  sea-monster,  Proteus,  he  could  learn  his  way 
back  from  Troy.  He  went  to  the  cave  of  the  monster. 
The  struggle  began.  It  was  a  lion, — but  suddenly  it  be- 
came a  leopard,  then  a  wild  boar,  then  a  dragon, — no,  a 
stream  of  water, — no,  a  tree.  But  he  held  to  it  and  com- 
pelled its  secret.  Untrained  thought  is  just  like  this. 
And  we  have  first  to  check  and  hold  it.  This  unbridled 
thought  carries  with  it  our  secret  and  we  are  to  compel 
that  secret  from  it.  We  catch  the  untutored  mind.  We 
compel  processes,  we  apply  principles,  until  by  and  by, 

162 


this  mind  which  we  have  trained  knows  itself  and  gains 
control  over  itself. 

I  cannot  trace  the  process  except  briefly.  Why  does 
a  child  first  learn  to  read  ?  It  is  so  as  to  follow  a  line  of 
thought  slowly  and  understandingly.  Why  take  arithme- 
tic ?  So  as  to  think  in  numbers  and  about  things.  And 
why  take  algebra?  So  as  to  see  the  negative  as  well  as 
the  positive  side  of  truth,  so  as  to  deal  with  symbols 
which  require  so  very  much  more  care.  By  slow  steps 
come  the  processes  of  geometry,  when  lo  and  behold,  the 
mind  begins  to  see  its  own  self,  its  own  living  process. 

Now  all  this  is  restraint  and  guidance.  When  this 
is  done,  or  while  it  is  doing,  we  introduce  this  same  mind 
to  the  beauties  of  literature  and  art  and  to  the  delights  of 
music.  All  this  is  an  awakening,  a  restraining,  a  guid- 
ing process.  It  may  be  gotten  in  college  and  may  be  got- 
ten out  of  it.  Those  men  like  Mr.  Lincoln  who  get  the 
training  outside  of  college  halls  call  themselves  self-made 
men.  But  whoever  gets  the  thing  is  a  self-made  man. 

The  process  is  not  without  difficulties  and  some  men 
and  women  have  toiled  long  and  painfully  to  give  the 
world  the  best  that  was  in  them.  It  took  forty  years  to 
make  Buffon  the  prince  of  naturalists.  Walter  Scott  was 
for  years  merely  a  copying  clerk  in  an  Edinburgh  law 
office.  But  the  pains-taking  drudgery  made  him  the  pains- 
taking writer  and  the  sanest  and  most  eminent  of  English 
novelists.  Madame  Sand  wrote  one  hundred  and  thirty 
fair-sized  volumes,  every  one  of  them  a  classic.  Such  are 
some  of  the  services  that  may  be  rendered  by  a  mind 
once  controlled  and  trained,  in  college  or  out. 

But  what  do  we  mean  by  thoughts?  I  think  most 
men  here  and  elsewhere  at  first  have  the  idea  that  to  be 
thinkers  we  must  be  statesmen  or  lawyers,  ministers  or 


163 


teachers,  poets  or  historians.  We  must  deal  with  words. 
But  engineers  also  are  thinkers,  so  are  superintendents 
and  bosses  of  shops,  and  all  intelligent  day  laborers, — 
men  who  deal  with  things.  A  town,  constructed  of  wood 
or  brick  or  stone,  built  by  masons  and  carpenters  is  just 
as  much  a  series  of  thoughts  as  is  the  city  that  John  des- 
scribes  in  Revelation,  the  New  Jerusalem  coming  down 
from  God  out  of  heaven.  Thoughts  are  not  confined  to 
words.  Men  can  think  steam  engines,  electrical  appli- 
ances, house  furnishings,  and  decorations.  We  say  that 
Roman  Law  is  a  complicated  system  of  thought,  but  so 
is  the  Pennsylvania  Railroad.  Justinian  secured  by  his 
thought  the  formulation  of  the  one,  and  by  doing  it 
brought  security  to  all  later  government ;  Mr.  Scott,  Mr. 
Thompson,  and  Mr.  Cassatt  have  perfected  the  other  and 
by  means  of  it  have  given  us  cheapness,  comfort,  speed, 
and  safety  in  travel. 

Look  about  you  in  this  beautiful  building.  There  is 
not  an  object  in  it  that  is  not  an  embodied  thought.  The 
whole  was  in  the  mind  of  Mr.  Hazelhurst,  the  architect, 
before  it  took  visible  form.  Part  after  part  gradually 
passed  through  and  before  the  mind  of  Joe  Alexander, 
the  builder,  as  it  took  form.  There  is  not  a  timber,  nor 
truss,  nor  brick,  nor  tiling,  nor  plank,  nor  nail,  nor  light 
of  glass,  nor  chair  or  any  part  of  it  that  has  not  been 
through  some  man's  brain. 

I  am  dwelling  on  this  because  of  an  infinite  world  of 
possibilities  it  opens  up  to  us  all.  It  is  a  consolation  that 
we  shall  not  be  obliged  to  be  maligned  lawyers  in  the 
future,  or  weakling  preachers,  or  poorly-paid  school  mas- 
ters. A  larger  world  is  open  to  us,  and  if  we  can  give  any 
useful  thought  a  material  form  or  do  some  act,  however 
humble,  which  will  please  or  give  help  or  comfort,  so  far 


164 


forth  shall  we  show  our  worth.  Joseph  Chamberlain  has 
just  been  elected  again  to  represent  the  city  of  Birming- 
ham in  Parliament.  It  was  his  father's  fortune  that  en- 
abled the  son  to  go  to  parliament  the  first  time,  and  the 
father  got  his  fortune  by  the  thought  of  a  screw  with  a 
tapering  point. 

I  know  a  humble  Irishman  who  earned  an  enviable 
reputation  by  tending  a  railroad  crossing.  It  was  a  hum- 
ble thought  but  he  put  it  into  act.  It  was  a  grade  cross- 
ing seven  miles  out  of  Boston.  John  Welch  tended  it 
every  day  in  the  week  for  over  thirty  years,  and  was  not 
absent  from  duty  a  week  all  told  in  all  that  time.  When 
the  Albany  Railroad  sank  its  road-bed  twelve  feet,  the 
old  man's  job  was  done.  No  man  in  that  town  was  more 
honored,  not  for  his  private  character,  but  because  he  had 
intended  to  keep  that  broad  crossing  safe  from  fatalities 
and  really  had  done  so  for  a  generation. 

'There  is  land  to  westward,"  said  Columbus,  and  per- 
sisted in  his  thought.  How  long,  toilsome,  and  saddening 
were  all  those  years  until  they  ended  in  the  phrase, 
"Land  ahead."  That  was  his  thought  at  last  come  true. 
It  proves,  as  Lowell  says,  that  "One  day  with  life  and 
heart  is  more  than  time  enough  to  find  a  world." 

There  is  always  opportunity  to  contribute  a  new 
thought.  Roosevelt  headed  the  rough  riders ;  John  Wan- 
amaker  thought  the  department  store;  John  Fritz,  of 
Bethlehem,  invented  the  great  steam  compressors;  Wil- 
liam Pepper  enlarged  the  University  of  Pennsylvania; 
Charles  W.  Eliot  revolutionized  American  education.  In 
about  fifteen  years  only  William  Rainey  Harper  walked 
to  the  head  of  our  college  presidents,  founding  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago  and  leaving  it  with  a  reputation  and 
an  endowment  of  seventeen  millions.  Was  he  a  successful 


165 


man  of  business,  or  a  successful  president?  What  shall 
we  say?  We  may  say  both,  for  he  excelled  in  each. 
Think  how  the  thoughts  of  our  monied  men  are  taking 
form  these  later  years.  Think  to  what  uses  Mr.  Carnegie 
is  putting  his  money,  and  of  the  future  of  the  Rhoades 
scholarships.  These  are  instances  where  new  thoughts 
apply  themselves  to  new  opportunities,  and  things  are 
done  quite  unlike  anything  men  have  previously  heard  of. 

But  of  course  these  are  big  opportunities  and  they 
open  up  to  men  of  big  means.  Well,  then,  let  us  strike 
your  level  and  my  level.  Every  man  can  begin  with  soap 
and  blacking.  Every  man  can  pay  attention  to  the  neat- 
ness of  his  own  person,  which  surely  is  one  of  the 
speediest  ways  of  conciliating  other  people's  good  will. 
Every  one  can  give  a  thought  to  his  own  appearance,  his 
own  outward  habits  and  so  pave  the  way  to  other  things. 
Get  accustomed  to  thinking  that  men  ought  not  to  pay 
you  above  the  value  of  your  thoughts.  If  you  can  think 
only  log  cabins,  they  will  not  pay  you  the  legacies  that 
were  given  Mr.  Richardson  out  of  whose  brain  came 
structures  like  Phillips  Brooks's  Church  in  Boston  and  the 
noble  Allegheny  Court  house  in  Pittsburgh. 

Suppose  you  have  only  a  very  humble  thought,  if  it 
will  benefit  your  fellow  men  or  will  advance  your  business 
by  injuring  nobody,  why  let  the  world  have  your  thought. 
The  world  likes  something  new  and  will  pay  for  it  in 
money  or  in  honor.  Dennison  invented  tags  to  put  on  all 
sorts  of  articles.  There  was  a  fortune  in  it.  An  invalid 
invented  the  game  called  "Pigs  in  Clover"  and  so  got  rich. 
Day  and  Marten  of  London  sent  a  man  to  write  the  adver- 
tisement of  their  blacking  on  the  pyramids  of  Egypt. 
They  set  London  by  the  ears  at  the  insult,  and  so  secured 


166 


—which  was  their  thought — a  greater  market  for  their 
blacking. 

I  have  said,  thus  far,  that  a  man  is  worth  what  he 
can  think ;  that  he  can  and  does  think  in  things  as  well  as 
in  words ;  that  for  this  reason,  an  infinite  world  of  possi- 
bilities opens  up  to  men.  And  now  comes  my  best 
thought,  that  a  man  all  through  this  world  must  have 
respect  for  other's  thoughts. 

What  a  record  of  his  thoughts  man  has  left !  He  has 
catalogued  the  stars  and  knows  their  constitution.  He 
has  analyzed  the  flowers  and  classified  the  animals  and 
put  to  various  uses  the  minerals.  He  has  delved  under 
the  earth  and  set  in  order  its  structure.  He  has  found 
philosophy.  He  has  written  the  Bible,  the  Greek  drama, 
and  Shakespeare.  The  ruins  of  his  earlier  greatness 
mark  every  continent  of  the  earth.  But  his  greatest 
thoughts  have  been  respect  to  other  men's  thoughts.  And 
the  young  man  who  thinks  must  learn  that  others  think 
also.  In  that  thought  he  will  get  both  the  good  view  and 
the  bad  view  of  men,  will  learn  what  they  need  and  what 
they  can  do,  will  learn  patience  and  charity.  Is  he  am- 
bitious? So  are  they.  Do  his  thoughts  pass  for  learn- 
ing? So  do  their's.  He  must  learn  to  wait.  He  must 
learn  how  to  gain  a  hearing. 

If  education  and  religion  are  seeking  to  spread  their 
thoughts  abroad,  it  is  equally  true  that  ignorance  and 
crime  have  their  thoughts  and  are  more  insistent  to  get 
a  hearing.  Look  at  established  custom  in  society,  in 
church,  in  state.  Are  they  almost  impervious  to  new 
thoughts?  How  shall  a  man  who  has  a  noble  idea,  as 
Jesus  had,  as  Paul  had,  how  shall  he  convince  society  that 
there  is  a  need  of  his  idea?  Such  a  question  as  this  is  a 

167 


hard  question.  It  calls  for  self-denial,  for  long  waiting, 
and,  like  as  not,  for  torture  and  crucifixion. 

There  certainly  are  calls  enough  for  wisdom  of  word. 
We  never  can  have  too  many  statesmen,  or  too  many 
preachers,  or  too  many  teachers.  And  so  too,  we  never  can 
have  too  many  useful  appliances  and  inventions,  too  many 
of  those  practical  thoughts  that  result  in  more  comfort  to 
our  daily  life.  But  we  need  the  thought  of  charity  more 
than  any  of  these.  We  need  an  enlargement  of  thought 
toward  others.  We  need  to  chastise  envy  and  ambition  in 
ourselves.  Envy  would  trip  up  a  man  whose  thought 
would  make  him  more  famous  or  more  prosperous  than 
we.  Ambition  would  forestall  such  a  man,  even  trample 
on  him  to  attain  its  reward. 

These  are  days  when  a  few  men  have  gained  enor- 
mous influence  through  wealth  and  the  appliances  that 
have  enabled  them  to  get  wealth.  Wealth  so  accumu- 
lated, especially  when  it  combines  with  other  wealth,  does, 
after  a  time,  set  forces  into  operation  for  which  no  one 
man  seems  wholly  responsible.  The  machinery,  be  it  in 
business  or  in  the  churches,  grinds  on  and  overrides  the 
thoughts  of  the  competitor.  It  is  blind,  heartlessly  so, 
to  the  benefits  he  might  confer. 

The  issues  of  life  are  so  varied,  the  means  and  oppor- 
tunities through  which  we  may  be  of  service  to  our  fel- 
lows are  so  unlimited  in  number  that  amid  all  this  con- 
fusion of  thought  we  need  the  thread  of  Ariadne  to  guide 
us. 

Serve  your  fellow  men  and  obey  God.  That  is  the 
thread  that  will  lead  us  through  the  maze  of  our  mod- 
ern life.  By  determining  to  serve  his  fellow  men,  a  man 
will  think  of  good  things,  of  helpful  things.  With  such 
a  motive  he  will  fight  against  deceit  in  himself  and  in 

168 


others.  He  will  argue  for  a  good  cause.  He  will  preach 
a  sermon  full  of  his  own  sincere  convictions.  He  will 
not  write  a  novel  down  to  a  certain  level  where  it  will 
sell,  but  up  to  a  certain  level  where  every  word  and  char- 
acter in  it  will  elevate.  He  will  do  a  good  job.  He  will 
not  need  the  eye  of  the  boss  to  watch  him,  and  he  will 
not  be  watching  the  face  of  the  clock.  And  if  he  obeys 
God  he  will  learn  the  thought  that  the  issues  of  life  are  in 
God's  hands.  In  fluctuations  of  circumstances  over 
which  he  has  no  control  he  will  be  calm,  because  God 
rules.  The  man  that  keeps  his  heart  with  daily  diligence, 
whispers  hourly  to  wit:  "Whatsoever  things  are  true, 
honest,  just,  pure,  lovely,  of  good  report,  think  on  these 
things." 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  January  21,  1906. 


XIII.     SUCCESS  THROUGH  MONOTONY 

"And  the  man  of  God  was  wroth  with  him,  and  said,  Thou 
shouldest  have  smitten  five  or  six  times;  then  hadst  thou  smitten 
Syria  till  thou  hadst  consumed  it:  Whereas  now  thou  shalt  smite 
Syria  but  thrice."— II  Kings  13:9. 

An  old  man  knows  the  value  of  repeating  a  thing, 
of  doing  it  over  and  over  again.  To  a  young,  untried 
man  such  a  repetition  is  often  tiresome  and  monotonous. 
The  old  man  knows  that  success  in  this  world  is  likely 
to  come  through  what  seems  to  the  young  man  mere 
humdrum. 

But  notice  first  the  pulse-beat  of  the  universe  is  one 
unceasing  monotone.  It  is  that  which  strikes  us  more 
than  any  and  all  things  else.  We  know  not  the  essence 

169 


of  the  ether  which  pervades  all  space,  but  we  know  it 
pulsates  in  one  unceasing  vibration.  The  stars  and 
planets  in  their  turn  return  with  absolute  regularity.  The 
seasons  yearly  renew  their  story,  winter  and  summer, 
dreariness  and  cold,  verdure  and  warmth,  death  and  life ; 
so  is  the  story  repeated  to  a  thousand  generations. 
Niagara  falls  incessantly  over  its  precipice  and  silently 
cuts  the  gorge  before  it.  Its  slow  retreat  goes  hourly  on 
for  six  or  ten,  perhaps  thirty  thousand  years.  Stand  on 
the  beach,  and  day  and  night  you  see  its  surf  rise  and  fall, 
an  unending  roar  on  "the  naked  shingles  of  the  world." 

Again,  men  come  to  love  and  trust  in  this  monotony 
as  they  grow  accustomed  to  it.  They  come  to  imitate  it. 
How  is  it  in  our  common  life?  In  minor  daily,  apparent- 
ly unimportant,  matters  we  depend  upon  the  regular  beat, 
the  regular  recurrence  of  the  daily  round.  How  else  are 
we  to  know  the  truth  of  things  ?  There  is  no  real  truth 
in  one  event,  in  one  occurrence,  in  one  assertion.  To 
know  that  a  man  is  truthful,  we  must  know  that  his 
word  has  been  kept  on  several,  on  many  occasions.  We 
must  test  his  invention  or  himself  by  repeated  occasions. 
If  we  do  not  know  him  we  require  a  certificate  of  him 
from  some  one  whom  we  do  know,  so  that  by  it  we  may 
understand  that  he  has  repeatedly  done  such  and  such 
things,  things  which  determine  his  truth  and  fitness. 

We  require  this  of  man's  works  as  well  as  his  word, 
for  his  works  are  his  words.  What  a  man  says  must  be 
proved  true  by  many  repetitions,  and  what  he  does,  that 
which  proceeds  as  a  product  from  his  hand,  must  be 
proved  in  the  same  way.  Almost  the  first  thing  you  be- 
come conscious  of  on  an  ocean  steamer  is  the  throb  of  the 
propeller.  Especially  is  this  true  when  you  get  out  of 
sight  of  land  and  are  settling  down  to  the  voyage.  How 

170 


tiresome  it  then  becomes!  But  let  that  throbbing  stop, 
let  it  continue  silent  for  a  while  and  you  will  find  your 
thoughts  taking  painful  turns.  "When  shall  we  get  to 
port?  Shall  we  ever  get  there?  We  may  drift  indefi- 
nitely. We  may  never  see  the  Old  World."  How  com- 
fortable a  sensation  it  is  when  you  feel  the  pulsations 
begin  again.  The  monotony  is  become  the  sweetest 
music. 

It  is  an  inspiration  to  be  well  on  toward  the  end  of 
a  long  train  and  see  perhaps  two  locomotives  ahead  of  you 
bending  around  a  curve  of  several  miles.  How  playfully 
they  seem  to  chase  each  other  over  the  dreary  spaces 
of  Arizona  or  New  Mexico.  It  is  that  graceful  monotony 
of  the  "drivers"  that  gradually  brings  you  over  the  thou- 
sands of  miles.  So  as  a  traveler  if  you  are  well  assured 
before  the  steamer  leaves  her  pier,  or  before  the  locomo- 
tive leaves  its  station,  that  the  machinery  in  each  case  Is 
in  perfect  running  order  and  good  for  the  day's  run  or 
the  trip  from  shore  to  shore,  why  that  assurance  puts  an 
element  of  strength  into  all  your  other  plans. 

Just  before  I  entered  college,  I  bought  a  watch  at 
second  hand  which  cost  me  only  twelve  dollars.  It  was  a 
Waltham,  P.  S.  Bartlett  grade,  in  a  silver  case.  I  had  it 
twenty-seven  years  and  the  jeweler  several  times  said, 
"That  watch  is  worth  a  gold  case.  You  will  never  get  a 
better  time-keeper."  How  proud  a  man  is  of  such  a  pos- 
session !  And  how  natural  it  is  that  we  should  be  proud 
of  man's  products  when  they  harmonize  with  nature  in 
their  accuracy  and  their  monotony  of  truth. 

Another  point:  Men  always  make  their  reputation 
and  gradually  determine  their  character  and  sometimes 
secure  their  fortune  by  the  accuracy  with  which  they  re- 
peat themselves.  You  may  perhaps  recall  the  character 

171 


of  Tim  Linkinwater  in  Nicholas  Nickleby.  "It's  forty- 
four  year,"  said  Tim,  "forty- four,  year  next  May,  since  I 
first  kept  the  books  of  Cheeryble  Brothers.  I've  opened  the 
safe  every  morning  all  that  time  (Sundays  excepted)  as 
the  clock  struck  nine,  and  gone  over  the  house  every  night 
at  half  past  ten  (except  on  Foreign  Post  nights,  and  then 
twenty  minutes  before  twelve)  to  see  the  doors  fastened 
and  the  fires  out.  I've  never  slept  out  of  the  back  attic 
one  single  night.  There's  the  same  mignonette  box  in 
the  middle  of  the  window,  and  the  same  four  flower-pots, 
two  on  each  side,  that  I  brought  with  me  when  I  first 
came.  There  ain't  such  a  square  as  this  in  all  the  world. 
There's  not  such  a  spring  in  England  as  the  pump  under 
the  archway.  There's  not  such  a  view  in  England  as  the 
view  out  of  my  window ;  I've  seen  it  every  morning  be- 
for  I  shaved,  and  I  ought  to  know  something  about  it." 
Old  Tim  had  grown  to  be  the  confidential  clerk  of  the 
Cheeryble  Brothers.  And  how  pathetic  the  words  really 
are.  But  many  a  man  in  many  a  town  is  constantly  liv- 
ing the  same  accurate  life. 

Being  some  years  ago  in  the  town  where  I  had  lived 
off  and  on  for  over  thirty  years,  I  inquired  "Where  is  so 
and  so?"  "Oh,  he  is  still  alive."  "What  is  he  doing?"  "Oh, 
what  he  always  has  done"  To  my  certain  knowledge  he 
had  for  sixty  years  or  more  gone  into  the  city  adjoining, 
his  whole  duty  to  sell  carpets,  and  that  work  he  had  done 
so  monotonously  well  that  for  a  generation  he  had  brought 
the  stream  of  trade  to  this  place.  The  coat  I  have  on  was 
made  by  a  man  who  has  made  clothing  for  me  for  over 
fifty  years.  I  said  to  him  three  or  four  years  ago,  "Do 
you  ever  get  to  Boston?"  "Well,  very  seldom."  "You 
go  to  Springfield  ever?"  "Well,  I've  been  there  two  or 
three  times."  No,  he  had  never  been  out  of  the  state. 


173 


But  he  knew  clothes.  He  knew  when  a  garment  fitted. 
His  trade  brought  him  nice  customers.  He  became  man- 
nerly and  informed  and  a  perfect  gentleman  through  daily 
contact  with  the  very  nicest  people.  But  they  had  been 
drawn  to  him  by  the  unceasing  monotony  with  which  he 
did  business.  For  he  was  always  there.  You  always 
could  depend  upon  his  unerring  judgment,  and  you  felt 
safe  in  his  hands.  You  knew,  when  he  said  so,  that  you 
were  well  dressed,  and  that  the  goods  you  wore  would  do 
you  service  as  he  guaranteed. 

Now,  I  said  that  men  make  their  reputation  and  their 
character  and  sometimes  their  fortune  in  this  way. 
Notice  how  I  put  in  that  word  "sometimes.1"  In  regard 
to  making  your  reputation  or  character  anywhere  there 
is  no  question.  You  will  make  that  and  will  not  fail  to 
make  it,  and  you  will  make  it  by  the  accurracy  with  which 
you  repeat  yourself.  If  you  have  a  work  to  do,  always 
do  it  a  little  better  than  before,  if  you  can.  Always  do 
it  on  time,  always  do  it  according  to  specifications. 
Never  let  the  product  fall  below  what  you  have  done  be- 
fore. Think  of  the  scores  of  menial  things  that  have  to 
be  done  in  any  town  or  village.  The  man  that  can  do 
some,  can  do  any,  of  these  with  approximate  perfection 
and  neatness  and  care  and  reliability  will  surely  win  the 
good  name.  It  may  be  only  occasionally  that  a  man's 
fidelity  may  win  him  fame  and  fortune. 

The  opportunities,  and  hence  the  fortunes  or  the 
great  names,  do  not  come  equally  to  all,  but  ought  it  not 
to  be  a  pleasure,  an  inspiration,  to  know  that  out  of  our 
faithful  monotonous  doing  of  duty  we  can  reap  that  which 
is,  after  all,  worth  more  than  a  fortune?  Does  not  the 
Good  Book  say  that  "a  good  name  is  rather  to  be  chosen 

173 


than  great  riches  and  loving  favor  than  silver  and  gold  ?" 
But  the  loving  favor  each  can  win  for  himself. 

"The  trivial  round,  the  common  task, 
Will  furnish  all  we  ought  to  ask: 
Room  to  deny  ourselves,  a  road 
To  bring  us  daily  nearer  God." 

Another  point :  The  main  duty  of  our  life  is  to  get 
into  our  monotony.  We  are  preparing  for  life  now.  Our 
college  courses  seem  to  say  and  they  make  us  feel  that  in 
a  few  months  we  shall  be  headed  so  and  so.  And  doubt- 
less in  most  cases  we  shall  be.  Mechanical  and  civil  and 
electrical  and  mining  engineers,  chemists,  agriculturists, 
and  here  and  there  a  teacher  or  a  business  man — yes,  I 
imagine  that  ninety  per  cent,  of  us  will  be  doing  pretty 
nearly  what  we  had  all  along  intended  to  do. 

But  to  begin  and  to  settle  down  into  the  monotony 
of  it  is  not  a  very  agreeable,  no,  it  is  sometimes  a  very 
disagreeable,  thing.  I  recall  distinctly  a  young  man  who 
had  given  himself  to  the  ministry.  His  work  of  prepara- 
tion for  the  profession  went  on  unhindered.  He  was  set- 
tled over  his  first  church  and  it  was  a  more  than  usually 
pleasant  one  and  in  a  pleasant  town  and  well  located. 
But  that  town  of  five  thousand  inhabitants  had  not  a  half 
dozen  college  graduates  in  it.  The  people  in  his  church 
were  all  working  people  engaged  in  shop  or  farm.  He 
must  preach  to  them,  must  visit  them,  must  receive  visits 
from  them,  must  visit  their  sick  and  bury  their  dead.  Oh, 
how  hard  it  was  to  settle  into  the  monotony  of  being  a 
preacher  to  this  people,  a  sympathetic  pastor  of  such  a 
people,  how  hard  to  settle  to  the  level  of  their  thought  and 
conversation.  The  Greek  any  man  has  studied  is  of  no 
value  to  him  at  such  a  time.  The  Latin,  just  the  same ; 
and  the  French  or  German,  just  the  same.  People  will 

174 


tell  you  that  your  Modern  Languages  will  be  of  immed- 
iate help  to  you,  but  you  will  find  them  just  as  immed- 
iately helpful  as  the  ancient  ones.  It  is  astonishing  how 
much  a  man  does  not  thumb  dictionaries  when  he  gets 
into  real  life.  All  his  systematical  theology,  or  theoret- 
ical chemistry,  or  higher  mathematics  generally  has  to 
make  way  for  a  religion  that  must  apply  to  daily  individ- 
ual cases  and  for  specific  problems,  most  of  which  are 
settled  not  so  much  by  knowledge  altogether  as  by  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  common  sense.  So  that  if  a  man  has 
been  sagacious  enough  to  use  his  good  sense  during  his 
college  course  and  not  wholly  to  forget  it  as  men  too  often 
do,  why  such  a  man  will  gradually  settle  down  into  any 
new  condition  and  make  it  profitable.  But  he  will  find 
a  painful  monotony  at  the  start.  Nothing  will  be  as  ideal 
as  he  had  forecast  it. 

But  I  have  not  a  particle  of  pity  for  the  man  who 
must  settle  down  to  the  monotony  in  new  and  hard  con- 
ditions and  with  meagre  pay.  These  things  are  as  they 
should  be.  These  untoward  conditions  are  not  untoward. 
They  are  the  intended  tests  to  his  fidelity  and  patience. 
Under  these  conditions  alone  can  he  show  the  stuff  that 
is  in  him.  He  can  show  the  spirit  with  which  he  will 
strike  and  whether  he  has  in  him  any  of  the  qualities  of 
which  sterling  men  are  made.  No  man  is  ready  or 
worthy  to  receive  the  large  recompenses  and  honors  of 
life  until  he  has  been  tested  by  some  years  of  monotonous 
and  perhaps  servile  responsibility,  for  only  thus  can  his 
worth  be  known. 

But  again  the  monotony  must  be  that  of  a  living, 
breathing  organism,  and  not  the  monotony  of  a  fossil. 
There  are  trilobites  whose  record  is  left  only  in  the  rock 
strata,  while  there  were  once  others  that  lived  and 


175 


breathed  and  moved  about  with  the  changing  tide.  You 
may  split  a  stratum  of  rock  and  find  the  leaf  or  the  bird 
track  imprinted  there.  You  thus  open  up  a  silent  record 
hidden  for  centuries,  one  that  might  have  been  hidden 
for  milleniums,  monontony  without  life  and  almost  with- 
out use.  But  look  at  the  leaf  on  the  tree  or  the  bird  on 
the  wing.  Monotonous  is  the  leaf's  unchanging  swing. 
Automatically  almost  does  the  bird  fly  to  its  nest  and  re- 
turn. With  the  morn  it  unvaryingly  begins  its  matins  or 
makes  the  nighfall  sacred  with  its  note.  How  much  more 
beautiful,  more  useful  the  monotony  of  the  living  than 
the  monotony  of  the  dead  thing.  The  one  is  dead  and 
belongs  to  a  dead  past  and  is  sealed  in  a  rocky  tomb  where 
it  must  lie  in  one  unending  monotone  of  silence,  but  the 
other  is  a  monotony  of  life,  of  life  that  is  a  part  of  all 
living  things ;  of  life  that  spends  itself  in  contributing  to 
the  monotonous  music  of  all  living  things;  a  monotony, 
the  essential  part  of  whose  nature  is  to  change  with  the 
changing  seasons;  to  be  green  and  full  of  life  when  the 
season  comes,  or  to  glorify  the  face  of  nature  with  red 
and  purple  and  gold  when  the  time  returns ;  to  hurry  with 
impatient  and  yet  unerring  wing  when  the  snow  line 
warns,  or  with  the  monotony  of  a  like  eagerness  to  build 
its  nest  and  rear  its  young  among  opening  leaves  and  fra- 
grant blossoms. 

Yes,  nature  calls  us  to  monotony,  only  let  us  make  it 
a  monontony  that  is  not  the  slave  of  mere  habit,  or  the 
slave  of  our  trade  or  our  profession,  not  the  slave  to  the 
hour  of  the  day,  or  the  department  of  work,  or  the  com- 
mand of  the  man  above  us.  Let  us  learn  to  go  to  our  life 
and  our  life's  work  with  the  willingness  to  be  commanded 
and  yet  not  wholly  yielding  the  desire  to  command ;  with 
the  willingness  to  yield  to  other's  initiative  where  we 

176 


must,  and  yet  not  wholly  losing  a  supple  command  of  our 
own.  The  fossil  man  is  the  real  hireling.  He  is  content 
to  be  set  in  motion  or  at  rest  by  the  bell.  His  tale  is  so 
many  bricks  a  day.  He  keeps  the  hours  specified.  If  a 
professional  man  he  talks  in  the  language  of  the  lawyer, 
or  the  doctor,  or  the  preacher,  and  draws  his  fee.  He 
feels  all  the  conditions  and  yet  he  feels  none  of  them.  He 
is  not  interested  either  in  your  property,  or  your  body,  or 
your  soul  as  a  man  with  living,  sympathetic  habit  should 
be.  And  it  is  this  enthusiasm  of  interest,  this  eagerness 
for  his  work,  that  every  man  should  bring  with  him  into 
life  and  into  what  life  lays  to  his  hand.  Any  living  work 
to  be  done  in  this  world  by  any  living  man  is  connected 
by  so  many  cords  with  the  work  that  other  men  are  do- 
ing, that,  if  a  man's  sympathies  are  broad  enough  and 
active  enough,  he  can  get  discipline  a  plenty  and  accom- 
plishments the  most  perfect  and  experience  and  enjoyment 
to  the  full,  if  he  will  only  render  his  service  heartily  and 
manfully  and  constantly  and  with  sympathy  to  the  whole 
organism  of  which  he  is  an  essential  part. 

The  old  prophet  and  the  young  king.  Let  us  turn  in 
closing  to  this  scene  in  the  prophet's  death  chamber. 
Elisha  more  than  eighty,  for  fifty  years  a  prophet,  was  in 
his  dying  bed ;  Joash,  the  young  king,  not  over  thirty,  was 
untried  as  yet  in  the  details  of  government.  The  old 
man  resolute  in  death,  the  young  king  bending  over  him 
despondent  at  his  death  and  crying  out  in  the  very  lan- 
guage which  Elisha  had  used  years  before  as  he  parted 
from  Elijah:  "My  father,  my  father,  the  chariots  of 
Israel  and  the  horsemen  thereof."  The  old  prophet  rais- 
ing himself  in  the  bed.  His  hasty  commands,  one  follow- 
ing another,  to  the  king.  "Take  thy  bow  and  arrows. 
Put  thy  hand  upon  the  bow.  Open  the  window;  shoot 


177 


Jehovah's  arrow  of  victory,  even  the  arrow  of  victory  over 
Syria.  Take  the  arrows.  Smite  on  the  ground.  Thou 
shouldest  have  smitten  five  or  six  times;  then  shouldest 
thou  have  smitten  Syria  until  thou  hadst  consumed  it." 

This  is  a  scene,  a  scene  of  scenes,  worthy  of  a 
painter.  It  is  the  old  lesson  of  age  advising  youth,  grey 
hairs  on  the  one  side,  untried  youth  on  the  other ;  the  life 
full  of  years  that  has  had  volumes  of  experience  and  can 
almost  read  the  future  from  the  past ;  the  life  that  knows 
the  value  of  conviction  and  decision  and  a  high  purpose. 
On  the  other  hand  is  the  untried  life,  the  life  that  does 
not  yet  understand  the  values  that  underlie  mere  every 
day  living,  that  knows  not  the  dangers,  the  possibilities, 
the  responsiblities,  which  are  revealed  to  the  eyes  of  the 
older  man. 

Our  conditions  today  are  not  dissimilar.  It  is  an 
older  man  addressing  several  hundred  younger  men.  It 
is  not  a  prophet  exhorting  a  king,  and  yet  every  grey- 
haired  man  has  earned,  by  the  experiences  of  a  life  right- 
ly lived,  the  right  to  be  in  part  a  prophet.  Every  young 
man  has  the  possibilities  that  are  kingly.  It  is  not  Syria 
and  Damascus  that  lie  outside  the  window  there  to  be 
fought  and  overcome.  No,  it  is  not  that;  but  it  is  life 
as  it  will  confront  us,  nay,  as  it  does  confront  us.  When 
advised  by  those  of  experience  to  make  issue  with  this  life 
right  now,  to  take  life  seriously,  to  strike  with  the  passion 
of  one  who  means  to  strike  repeatedly  and  indefinitely, 
let  us  do  so  with  the  vigor  of  conviction  such  as  shows 
that  we  believe  in  a  real  enemy  and  in  a  real  work  to  be 
done  and  in  a  real  ideal  to  be  attained ;  with  a  vigor,  too, 
that  shows  we  are  bound  to  put  in  our  strokes  where  the 
noblest  before  us  have  struck,  and  to  continue,  even  at  the 


178 


plodding  humdrum  pace,  with  the  ideals  that  we  have  re- 
ceived from  an  ancestry  of  plodders. 

Brothers,  let  us  learn  to  love  the  monotony  of  the 
stars  and  the  seasons,  the  monotony  of  the  birds  and  the 
flowers,  the  monotony  of  that  thing  which  we  call  law, 
the  monotony  of  conscience  on  the  scientific  side,  but 
which,  on  the  side  of  the  heart,  we  know  to  be  the  infinite, 
unchanging  love  of  God. 

Let  us  learn  lovingly  to  contribute  our  share  to  this 
infinitely  repeated  pulsation  of  the  eternal  love.  Let  us 
learn  to  acquiesce  in  it,  whatever  be  the  conditions,  under 
whatever  skies,  among  whatever  changes.  Only  frag- 
ments of  the  old  Hebrew  Melodies  and  the  old  Greek 
music,  remain  in  the  world,  but  they  make  that  Gregorian 
music  whose  monotone  and  simplicity  constitutes  its 
grandeur,  and  separates  it  from  the  passing  music  of  the 
hour.  Let  us  catch  the  fragments,  in  the  Bible  or  out  of 
it,  of  that  harmony  which  has  always  dwelt  in  all  souls 
who  have  made  the  will  of  God  their  constant  duty,  the 
love  of  God  their  daily  law. 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  June  3,  1906. 


XIV.     MOULDED   BY  AN   IDEA. 

A  Brief  Memorial  of  President  George  W.  Atherton. 

Very,  very  impressive  was  the  face  of  our  dead  Presi- 
dent as  he  lay  here  in  his  casket  last  summer.  It  seemed 
not  of  flesh  but  of  marble,  chiselled  by  some  contemporary 
of  Phidias,  and  seasoned  somewhat  by  the  lapse  of  time. 

It  showed  us  plainly  this:  that  nature  is  a  sure  and 
effectual  sculptor,  that  the  thoughts  and  emotions  of  men 
gradually  chisel  themselves  on  the  form  and  in  the  fea- 


179 


tures.  The  ugly  face  of  Socrates  was  made  attractive  by 
his  inner  thoughts.  In  some  of  the  faces  of  the  early 
Caesars  you  can  read  the  grandeur  of  the  Roman  Empire. 
Dr.  Atherton  was  an  unsually  impressive  personality.  In 
a  body  of  assembled  college  presidents  he  was  second  to 
none  in  this  respect. 

An  idea  contributed  to  this  distinction  of  personality ; 
the  presence  and  constant  operation  of  this  idea  rendered 
him  an  object  worthy  of  careful  study ;  he  showed  himself 
one  of  those  few — very  few — men,  whose  characters  will 
bear  study,  and  which  must  be  studied  to  be  understood. 

The  idea  I  refer  to  was  this  :  He  thought  of  himself 
constantly  as  the  President  of  The  Pennsylvania  State 
College.  This  thought  was  uppermost  in  him  always. 
If  one  did  not  get  hold  of  this  clue  he  did  not  understand 
Dr.  Atherton.  Many  thought  him  enigmatical.  Some 
failed  entirely  to  understand  him.  To  a  few  he  was  an- 
tipathetic, but  it  was  because  they  had  not  touched  him 
sympathetically  in  the  idea  that  dominated  him.  After 
1882,  when  he  came  to  take  charge  of  the  work  here,  he 
was  emphatically  the  President  of  The  Pennsylvania 
State  College.  That  thought  moved,  swayed,  ruled  and, 
— toward  the  end — controlled  and  wholly  absorbed  him. 

And  let  me  impress  this  fact :  He  was  not  the  Presi- 
dent of  The  Pennsylvania  State  College  which  he  found 
here,  but  of  the  college  which  was  to  be  here;  the  college 
which  he  has  gradually  been  bringing  here;  the  college 
which,  in  spite  of  slow  legislation  and  opposition,  is  here, 
and  is  here  to  stay. 

A  man  coming  here  to  a  college  so  remote,  so  little 
known,  so  small,  might  easily  have  found  it  no  great  in- 
spiration. But  he  came  to  this  little  village,  call  it  bunch 
of  houses  rather,  with  as  much  pride  as  he  would  have 


180 


gone  to  Cambridge  or  to  the  presidency  of  his  own  col- 
lege at  New  Haven,  because  he  saw  from  the  first,  not 
the  college  that  was,  but  that  was  to  be.  He  lived  not 
among  the  half  dozen  that  were  then  graduating,  but 
among  the  throngs  that  were  to  graduate.  Pennsylvania 
was  to  his  thought  an  empire.  This  was  the  most  ideal 
location  in  it.  From  the  start,  he  dreamed  of  its  extend- 
ing avenues  and  walks  and  its  noble  buildings  and  throng- 
ing scholars.  It  was  his  Oxford,  rather  say,  his  Jerusa- 
lem, The  Pennsylvania  State  College. 

I  came  here  to  see  the  college  on  the  Saturday  before 
commencement,  1892.  For  two  hours  and  more,  busy  as 
he  was,  he  went  with  me  over  the  campus  and  among  the 
buildings.  He  said :  "I  want  you  to  go  to  my  Mt. 
Pisgah,"  and  he  took  me  up  to  the  top  of  "Old  Main" 
and  showed  me  "all  the  land  of  Gilead  unto  Dan."  But 
what  entertained  me  most  was  that  I  never  saw  in  any 
man  a  greater  enthusiasm  for  an  idea  than  I  saw  in  him 
that  day.  I  have  seen  him  on  a  thousand  occasions  since 
and  I  never  saw  him  when  this  idea  was  not  in  his 
thought  or  when  it  could  not  be  fanned  suddenly  into  a 
flame. 

Furthermore,  if  you  came  as  a  member  of  his  fac- 
ulty, he  wanted  the  same  idea  to  take  form  in  you.  He 
wanted  the  thought  to  dominate  you  as  it  did  him.  He 
did  not  want  you  to  come  with  the  feeling  that  we  were 
small,  that  we  did  not  compare  favorably  with  other 
colleges.  He  quickly  resented  comparisons  where  there 
was  the  least  disparagement  of  State.  He  would  not  ad- 
mit that  we  were  second  to  any  college  in  the  land.  And 
such  thought  will  do  most  to  make  us  the  first.  Any  in- 
structor who  could  not  grasp  President  Atherton's  idea 
was  not  long  retained  on  the  force.  He  must  have  the 


181 


Doctor's  enthusiasm  and  it  must  be  real;  otherwise  his 
stay  was  of  short  duration. 

The  same  was  true  with  students  who  were  not  sub- 
ject to  rule,  who  disregarded  the  rights  of  property  or  in 
any  way  departed  from  true  manliness.  He  had  seldom 
forgiveness  for  them.  He  depricated  their  misconduct  as 
a  blot  on  our  escutcheon,  as  an  unclean  page  on  the  record 
of  the  noble  institution  which  was  in  his  dreams. 

And  furthermore,  this  idea  he  honored  in  the  pres- 
ence of  all  comers.  It  might  be  men  from  larger  centres, 
from  older  and  more  renowned  institutions ;  it  might  be 
committees  of  legislature;  whoever  it  was,  he  made  no 
apologies  for  this  college,  although  it  had  as  yet  no  name. 
He  gave  all  to  understand  that  this  college,  in  the  spirit 
of  its  foundation,  with  the  State  of  Pennsylvania  to  back 
it,  in  its  location,  and  purpose,  and  outlook,  was  second 
to  none. 

This  then  was  the  idea  that  dominated  Dr.  Atherton. 
Notice  it  in  its  operation  and  effects. 

For  the  last  seven  years  of  Dr.  Atherton's  life  I  was 
thrown  into  very  close  and  tender  relations  with  him.  I 
saw  his  heart  laid  open  scores  of  times  as  no  other  per- 
son did.  I  had  the  opportunity  to  test  the  sincerity  of  his 
motives  and  the  nobility  of  his  convictions,  probably  more 
so  than  any  other  person,  and  to  me  his  life  grew  more 
and  more  beautiful  and  rounded  to  completeness. 

It  is  not  yet  two  years  since  I  asked  him  one  Sunday : 
"You  are  not  in  doubt  as  to  the  great  fundamentals  of  our 
holy  religion?"  He  answered  me  with  the  tenderness  of 
one  making  a  confession  of  faith  and  the  tears  were  in 
his  eyes.  I  believe  that  he  felt  himself  president  of  this 
college  under  God,  and  sought  to  be  ready  at  any  moment 
to  give  an  account  of  his  stewardship. 

182 


Look  back  upon  him  now  in  the  light  of  these 
thoughts  and  see  him  transfigured. 

Personally,  how  neat  he  always  was,  and  gentleman- 
ly and  affable  and  considerate  of  others;  consciously  a 
man  every  inch  of  him,  every  waking  hour. 

Seldom  was  he  seen  on  the  village  street  except  as  an 
most  regular  attendant  on  church  when  the  college  was 
not  in  session,  or  doing  his  duty  as  a  voter,  or  attending 
perhaps  some  burial. 

He  was  thoughtful  toward  the  poor  as  toward  the 
rich,  and  as  considerate  of  the  employees  of  the  college  as 
of  its  faculty  and  students.  In  the  silence  of  his  office  he 
was  quietly  and  unselfishly  making  a  college  and  making 
a  village  while  others  were  studying  how  to  make  some- 
thing out  of  the  college  or  out  of  the  village. 

In  his  conduct  as  a  president  his  ruling  idea  was  al- 
ways to  the  fore.  At  Sunday  service  he  presided  with  a 
quiet  dignity  uniform  on  all  occasions,  almost  to  the  least 
motion.  No  outside  matter  or  announcement  was  al- 
lowed to  mar  the  order  of  service.  The  doctor  of  divinity 
or  the  plain  parson  alike  spoke  without  any  introduction, 
even  on  commencement  occasions.  In  that  way  each  ser- 
vice was  a  worship  of  God,  not  of  men.  It  was  the  divine 
service  of  The  Pennsylvania  State  College — in  dignity 
and  orderliness  unsurpassed  anywhere  in  the  land.  The 
same  was  true  of  the  daily  chapel.  He  never  failed  to  at- 
tend it  and  it  was  a  source  of  much  pain  to  him  that  any 
one  needed  to  be  exhorted  to  attend  this  service  of  a  great 
brotherhood  worshiping  the  divine  Father. 

Ruled  by  this  idea  he  presided  over  his  faculty  with 
promptness.  He  came  usually  full  of  business  and  des- 
patched it  rapidly.  If  he  were  gone  six  months,  in  six 

183 


hours  after  his  return  he  was  acquainted  with  all  the  cur- 
rent details. 

The  position  of  such  a  man,  seeking  to  convince  leg- 
islatures, to  guide  the  counsels  of  trustees,  to  harmonize 
the  differences  among  schools  and  departments,  to  co- 
ordinate departments  in  such  a  way  that  each  shall  have 
its  related  place  and  share,  to  bear  with  as  well  as  to  in- 
struct the  great  body  of  students,  to  keep  in  sympathetic 
touch  with  the  patronizing  public,  such  a  position  requires 
great  generalship,  and  herein  his  ruling  idea  served  a 
noble  purpose. 

With  that  pride  he  was  beginning  to  see  fortune 
smile  at  his  long  endeavor.  How  richly  he  enjoyed  see- 
ing his  earlier  dreams  taking  shape  in  the  buildings  erect- 
ed in  the  early  nineties,  and  in  this  Auditorium,  and  in  the 
Library,  and  McAllister  Hall.  With  what  pride  the  last 
months  of  his  life  he  stood  in  the  anteroom  here  and 
looked  out  upon  what  God  had  wrought. 

He  had  been  the  unswerving  optimist  through  it  all. 
His  optimism  was  already  making  his  dream  a  substantial 
fact. 

Then  came  the  shadow,  the  shadow  into  which  we  all 
must  enter,  and  he  passed  as  cheerfully  into  that  as  he 
had  previously  travelled  through  the  sunshine. 

I  had  occasion  to  follow  him  with  the  depest  sym- 
pathy as  he  went  to  California  that  last  winter.  I  could 
see  him  moving  about  Los  Angeles  or  riding  down  to  the 
pier  at  Long  Beach.  I  have  brave  accounts  of  him. 
The  noble  idea  of  more  than  twenty  years  was  still 
regnant  in  him.  It  healed  all  wounds,  compensated  for 
all  burdens,  and  reconciled  him  to  withdrawing  his  hand 
from  the  lever  he  had  managed  so  long. 

184 


No  murmur  of  impatience  or  regret  fell  from  his  lips 
during  the  long  weeks  of  his  last  illness.  He  was  cheer- 
ful. Instead  of  needing  cheer  he  cheered  those  around 
him.  He  passed  into  the  shadows  embodying  until  the 
last,  the  idea  which  had  controlled  him  and  which  sees  us 
here  today.  He  had  never  brought  shame  upon  that  idea, 
but  always  honor.  It  was  that  idea  that  carved  the  lines 
of  strength  and  grace  upon  his  features;  and  that  same 
idea,  ruling  in  us,  students,  and  teachers,  and  trustees, 
and  friends  of  the  college,  will  make  us  an  institution 
honorable  and  to  be  honored. 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  May  26,  1907. 


XV.     HONORING  ONE'S  NAME 

"And  the  Lord  came,  and  stood,  and  called  as  at  other  times, 
Samuel,  Samuel.  Then  Samuel  answered,  speak;  for  thy  servant 
heareth."— I  Samuel  3:10. 

How  many  instances  we  find  in  the  Bible  of  men 
called  suddenly  by  their  names.  God  calls  to  Adam. 
Abraham  is  addressed  abruptly.  At  the  burning  bush  is  a 
voice:  "Moses,  Moses,  put  off  thy  shoes  from  off  thy 
feet."  And  on  the  way  to  Damascus  there  was  heard  a 
voice:  "Saul,  Saul,  why  persecutest  thou  me?" 

There  is  a  deep  significance  in  many  Bible  names, 
and  the  circumstances  under  which  they  are  given  are 
sometimes  of  thrilling  interest.  Take,  for  instance,  the 
story  of  the  naming  of  Ichabod,  given  in  the  chapter  fol- 
lowing that  of  the  text.  A  battle  is  in  progress  between 
the  Israelites  and  the  Philistines.  The  Israelites  have 
sent  hastily  to  Shiloh  for  the  Ark  of  God  in  hopes  that 


185 


it  may  give  them  victory.  Eli,  the  priest  attendant  on 
the  Ark,  is  ninety-eight  years  old  and  cannot  hurry  with 
it  but  goes  part  way.  His  daughter-in-law  accompanies 
him.  Her  husband  is  with  the  army.  The  priest  and  the 
woman  have  stopped  to  rest  by  the  road-side.  The 
butchery  of  battle  is  going  on  not  far  from  them.  And 
yonder  is  dust  in  the  road.  A  messenger  quickly  comes 
up.  He  shouts  aloud  into  the  old  man's  ears :  "Israel 
is  fled  before  the  Philistines.  There  has  been  a  great 
slaughter.  Thy  two  sons,  Hophni  and  Phinehas  are  dead. 
And  the  Ark  of  God  is  taken."  Having  heard  the  last 
words  of  this  awful  climax  the  old  priest  falls  backwards, 
and  his  neck  is  broken.  The  dreadful  news  brings  to  the 
woman  the  sudden  pangs  of  child-birth,  and  death  follows 
in  a  few  moments.  Nothing  can  cheer  her  or  retain  her 
in  life.  When  asked  what  she  will  name  the  child  she 
replies :  "Call  him  Ichabod — the  Inglorious,"  meaning 
"the  glory  is  departed." 

Artlessly  natural  are  the  stories  of  the  naming  of 
Samuel  and  John  the  Baptist,  John  the  Beloved,  St.  John 
Chrysostom,  John  Huss,  John  Calvin,  John  Wesley. 
Picking  up  a  book  of  genealogy  the  other  day,  I  found 
the  name  John  given  to  the  first-born  son  for  five  gener- 
ations in  succession. 

In  Bible  times  names  were  given  to  commemorate 
some  event,  or  as  a  prophecy  of  the  future.  And  in  many 
cases  the  name  made  good.  Abraham  proved  to  be  "the 
father  of  a  great  multitude;"  Israel  was  a  "prince  of 
God;"  Joshua  proved  a  "deliverer;"  and  what  shall  we 
say  of  Jesus,  for  that  is  the  Greek  way  of  spelling  Joshua, 
— Jesus,  that  name  which  is  above  every  name?  "Thou 
shalt  call  his  name  Jesus,  for  He  shall  deliver  his  people 
from  their  sins."  Has  not  He  made  good  the  name  given 

186 


Him  ?  May  we  not  reasonably  say,  "There  is  none  other 
name  under  heaven  given  among  men"  ? 

In  our  time  also  care  is  usually  taken  with  the 
choosing  of  a  name.  The  name  of  some  beloved  and 
honored  relative  is  passed  on  with  pride.  There  is  given 
to  the  child  some  name  from  history  or  literature,  a  favor- 
ate  with  the  parents,  and  believed  to  carry  inspiration  for 
a  noble  life.  And  in  nearly  all  cases  the  naming  is  done 
formally  in  a  church  and  is  attended  with  baptism.  The 
giving  of  a  name  to  a  human  being  is  a  sacred  thing.  It 
is  not  like  naming  a  dog  or  a  horse.  There  is  solid  rea- 
son for  giving  a  name  to  a  man  or  a  woman.  The  name 
brings  personality  and  dignity  and  responsibility. 

And  yet  how  many  of  us  have  ever  dwelt  seriously 
upon  the  names  which  we  bear?  How  many  of  us  have 
ever  called  ourselves  by  name,  have  ever  spoken  to  our- 
selves as  though  we  were  somebody  else  ?  The  name  we 
bear  is  worth  repeating  aloud  occasionally  to  ourselves. 
That  name  is  to  cling  to  us  as  long  as  we  live.  It  and 
our  character  are  gradually  to  become  one.  We  are  to 
make  or  to  mar  our  name.  It  is  that  we  must  answer  to 
at  the  roll-call  of  God.  We  cannot  escape  or  easily 
change  our  name.  When  a  man  becomes  a  criminal  he 
sometimes  changes  his  name.  I  have  understod  that 
some  corporations  designate  their  employees  by  number 
rather  than  by  name.  Can  we  think  of  any  deeper  insult 
that  could  be  offered  us  than  to  take  away  our  name  and 
designate  us  by  a  number  only?  Should  we  like  to  be 
criminals  and  obliged  to  assume  a  new  name  in  each  new 
place  to  avoid  the  penalty  of  the  law  ? 

Let  me  dwell  on  the  fact  that  a  name  brings  out  a 
man's  personality.  Our  personality  is  our  crowning  gift. 
It  marks  us  out  and  distinguishes  us  from  everybody  else 

187 


— even  from  God  himself.  There  is  a  sort  of  royal  feel- 
ing attached  to  our  personality.  We  have  a  right  to  feel 
as  proud  as  our  proudest  neighbor,  and  when  our  best 
impulses  awake  in  us  we  do  not  want  to  be  anybody  else. 
That  is  manliness,  personality. 

I  think  too  that  a  man's  real  individuality  often  con- 
fronts him  for  the  first  time  some  day  while  he  is  in  the 
act  of  writing  his  name  on  paper,  slate,  or  blackboard.  I 
recall  distinctly  such  an  occasion  in  my  own  life  while  I 
was  yet  in  the  grammar  school;  the  time  when  I  began 
to  write  my  name  with  consciousness  and  pride  and  care, 
in  the  stereotype  form  in  which  I  have  written  it  ever 
since,  for  nearly  fifty  years.  That  was  the  awkening  of 
my  personality ;  the  arousing  of  my  pride  to  be  somebody, 
to  get  an  education ;  the  desire  to  draw  away  from  harm- 
ful influences  and  to  seek  nobler  ones. 

And  I  am  convinced  that  none  of  us  do  anything  as 
we  should  do  it  until  our  name  stands  out  so  as  to  confront 
our  attention.  "Samuel,  Samuel!"  Why,  no  wonder 
the  child  awoke  and  ran  to  ask  Eli  what  it  meant.  And 
Eli's  advice  was  full  of  insight  and  truth.  Eli  had  not 
succeeded  in  bringing  up  his  own  family  of  sons.  They 
could  hardly  have  been  worse  than  they  were.  But  Eli 
knew  that  the  voice  that  called  was  the  voice  of  God,  and 
he  wisely  gave  Samuel  advice  what  to  do. 

For  every  man  "the  voice  of  conscience  is  the  voice 
of  God."  When  a  distinct  utterance  calls  within  us  and 
says :  "Do  this.  Dbn't  do  that,"  it  is  the  call  of  God  to 
our  personality,  and  if  our  personality  responds  to  the 
call  it  increases  daily  in  what  is  its  best  good,  because 
its  best  good  is  its  truth  to  itself.  To  arouse  a  man's 
personality  is  to  give  him  dignity.  It  is  to  separate 
him  entirely  from  other  men :  to  make  him  stand  out  by 

188 


himself ;  to  make  him  realize  that  being  somebody  is  just 
being  himself. 

It  is  not  my  birth,  nor  my  natural  gifts,  it  is  not  my 
possessions,  or  my  friends,  or  even  my  opportunities 
which  are  the  things  of  most  importance  to  me.  It  is 
the  thing  called  myself.  When  I  have  grasped  that  idea 
and  learned  to  make  the  most  of  it  I  can  make  opportuni- 
ties, I  can  rally  friends  around  me.  Even  gifts  themselves 
can  be  enlarged  indefinitely  as  soon  as  I  learn  to  know 
that  /  am ;  that  /  can  be  good  or  bad ;  that  /  can  be  gener- 
ous or  mean ;  that  /  can  store  up  knowledge  or  can  live 
and  die  a  fool ;  that  /  can  live  so  that  when  I  am  gone  my 
name  will  be  honored  or  execrated. 

But  such  a  personality  and  dignity  entails  a  great 
responsibility. 

I  have  a  friend  who  for  twenty-five  years  has  been 
in  the  banking  business  and  at  the  head  of  a  clearing 
house.  It  is  said  that  if  you  could  take  his  signatures 
for  all  those  years  and  put  them  one  upon  another  they 
would  exactly  fit  each  other.  He  knows  the  responsi- 
bility that  goes  with  signing  his  name  to  a  draft  or  to  a 
check  or,  in  fact,  to  any  piece  of  paper.  Weight  is  given 
to  a  name  which  is  signed  with  such  uniformity.  Such 
signature  means  integrity  and  security.  It  becomes  a 
solemn  seal.  But  when  we  play  with  our  names,  which 
leads  other  people  to  take  the  same  liberty,  how  can  we 
feel  quite  the  same  security?  In  the  last  fifteen  years  I 
have  received  checks  made  out  in  more  than  a  dozen  dif- 
ferent ways.  But  when  the  bank  where  I  keep  a  tem- 
porary deposit  makes  out  a  draft  for  me,  it  is  always  with 
my  name  fully  and  properly  written.  And  that  is  the 
way  to  write  it.  It  makes  men  feel  that  you  are  acting 

189 


knowingly  and  conscientiously,    that    you  are    treating 
yourself  with  dignity,  that  you  are  not  slurring  things. 

How  the  circle  of  one's  personality  and  responsibili- 
ty is  widened  by  the  name.  Think  for  a  moment  of  the 
Post  Office  Department  of  our  government.  Of  what  use 
would  it  be  if  men  had  no  names?  How  long  could  its 
work  go  on  ?  In  fact  how  could  it  go  on  ?  All  the  mil- 
lion articles  which  the  Post  Office  handles  bear  a  name. 
Suppose  I  write  five  hundred  letters  a  year  to  friends  in 
various  parts  of  the  world.  The  thing  will  cost  me  not 
much  more  than  fifteen  dollars,  and  yet  my  influence  is 
extended  indefinitely,  just  because  of  the  value  and  con- 
venience of  a  name. 

For  more  than  twenty  years  I  had  corresponded  with 
persons  whom  I  had  never  seen,  whose  voices  I  had  never 
heard.  They  had  become  as  dear  to  me  as  if  I  had  met 
them  every  day.  Their  correspondence,  backed  up  by 
their  signatures,  had  become  an  indispensable  part  of  my 
life.  I  have  had  quite  a  close  touch  wtih  many  old  stu- 
dents. I  have  given  them  much  advice — whatever  its 
worth  may  have  been.  I  have  received  heaps  of  comfort 
from  them.  But  it  is  really  our  names  which  have  car- 
ried the  consolation.  Our  names  have  extended  the 
radius  of  our  personality  and  given  us  a  power  otherwise 
impossible. 

And,  do  you  know,  in  that  way  words  are  photo- 
graphed, just  as  persons  are  or  as  landscapes  are.  I 
found  only  a  few  months  ago  a  letter  written  to  me  by  an 
older  brother  of  mine  forty-five  years  before.  He  had 
gone  to  the  West  Coast.  He  was  getting  started  in 
work.  I  was  trying  to  get  an  education.  He  had  en- 
closed me  fifty  dollars  and  said  that  more  would  be  com- 
ing if  he  succeeded  and  if  I  needed  it.  The  long  years 

190 


had  passed  and  all  these  things  had  escaped  my  memory. 
But  there  was  the  letter,  and  there  was  the  signature,  pre- 
cisely as  he  has  written  it  to  this  day.  I  should  think  it 
sacrilege  ever  to  part  with  that  letter. 

In  a  few  years,  perhaps  months,  some  of  us  will  be 
only  a  name.  I  was  in  a  southern  city  a  few  days  ago, 
jostling  others  on  its  busy  streets,  my  ears  dinned  with  the 
activities.  In  a  few  minutes  I  had  left  the  electric  car 
and  was  in  a  National  Cemetery  where  fourteen  thousand 
Union  soliders  are  buried.  There,  row  on  row,  stretch- 
ing on  indefinitely  over  many  acres  were  the  little  stone 
markers  with  nothing  on  them  but  a  number  and  the 
man's  name  and  regiment,  or,  just  the  one  word,  "un- 
known." 

Well,  soon  all  our  activities  will  have  been  reduced 
to  a  name.  It  will  not  be  long  until  our  visible,  tangible, 
person  will  have  dropped  out  of  sight  and  all  that  will  be 
left  will  be  our  names  and  the  character  that  attaches  to 
each.  Not  one  man  in  a  million  needs  an  expensive  me- 
morial. A  marker  with  just  the  name  is  enough.  How 
significant,  in  the  corner  of  the  old  burying  ground  in 
Philadelphia  is  the  inscription :  "Benjamin  and  Deborah 
Franklin,  1790."  Knowledge  and  imagination  can  write 
in  the  rest. 

All  that  we  leave  behind  us  is  the  name  and  the  traits 
that  are  attached  to  it,  and  the  greatest  men  succeed  in 
clearing  their  names  so  that  they  are  known  by  them  and 
them  only:  Phillips  Brooks,  Henry  Ward  Beecher, 
Wendell  Phillips,  Lincoln,  Gladstone,  Victoria.  Small 
men  hunger  after  titles  and  are  anxious  to  be  known  and 
have  all  their  titles  written  out.  But  the  greatest  men 
slough  off  all  that  sort  of  thing. 

191 


How  things  will  stick  to  our  names  when  we  are  gone 
— yes,  while  we  live  also. 

Dip  a  magnet  into  steel  filings  and  see  how  they  stick 
to  it  and  radiate  from  it.  There  are  a  few  hours  during 
which  a  man  is  being  consigned  to  his  mother  earth  when 
we  touch  upon  the  better  side  of  his  life  only.  But  let  the 
days  go  by  and  gradually  what  the  man  really  was  is  what 
he  will  get  credit  for.  His  failures  will  gradually  come 
and  stick  to  his  name  like  flies  to  the  paper.  Was  he  sel- 
fish, was  he  unfeeling,  or  was  he  sottish  or  brutal,  did  he 
neglect  the  finer  feelings,  did  he  disregard  the  common 
courtesies  of  life? — people  will  know  about  it. 

Yes  and  they  will  know  if  the  opposite  things  are 
true, — if  he  were  generous,  if  he  were  patient,  if  he  were 
charitable,  if  he  cultivated  the  religious  sentiments. 

And  one  of  the  strangest  things  in  the  world  is  that 
to  such  a  name  as  Washington  there  are  added  every  de- 
cade new  glories.  The  moral  treasures  stored  up  in  the 
crude  and  unlettered  Lincoln  keep  coming,  yearly,  more 
and  more  into  the  light.  On  the  other  hand  with  the  ad- 
vancement of  mind  and  the  progress  of  true  enlighten- 
ment such  names  as  Napoleon  and  Caesar  lose  their 
charm. 

The  contemplation  of  a  good  character  is  like  the 
cutting  of  a  diamond.  The  more  work  put  upon  it,  the 
greater  is  found  to  be  its  value. 

The  colored  people  have  a  hymn  whose  refrain  runs 
like  this :  "When  the  general  roll  is  called,  I'll  be  there." 
Does  not  the  Bible  say :  "Every  one  of  us  shall  give  an 
account  of  himself  to  God?"  You  ask  me  if  there  will 
be  a  last  day,  and  a  last  judgment,  when  every  man  will  be 
called  out  by  name  to  give  an  account  of  himself.  I  never 


199 


like  to  answer  such  questions.     The  man  who  wants  them 
answered  would  not  be  satisfied. 

I  do  know  this :  every  day  is  a  judgment  day ;  our 
life  is  a  continual  name-calling.  And  every  call  ought 
to  meet  its  ready  response.  "Samuel,  Samuel!"  "Here 
am  I."  "Saul,  Saul !"  "Lord,  what  wilt  thou  have  me 
to  do?"  You  see  in  these  Bible  calls,  how  ready  each 
man  is,  when  he  hears,  to  obey.  And  I  believe  that  the 
march  of  human  progress  gradually  tends  toward  this :  a 
time  when  men  will  hear  more  distinctly  with  their  con- 
science and  will  be  prompt  in  their  obedience. 

Let  me  say  in  closing,  that  these  calls  spring  up  in 
every  man  and  on  all  occasions  and  in  connection  with  all 
duties.  We  need  no  burning  bush.  We  need  not  to  be 
struck  down  in  the  road  or  caused  to  see  a  light  above  the 
brightness  of  the  sun.  What  we  need  is  faithfully  to  fol- 
low the  inward  voice.  Shun  the  evil  and  choose  the  good 
and  do  this  in  every  calling  and  every  event  of  life.  It 
was  the  midnight  call  to  the  little  boy  that  gradually  led 
on  to  make  that  little  boy,  Samuel,  the  most  honored  of  all 
prophets.  Let  us  ask  Him  to  say:  "Speak  Lord,  for 
thy  servant  heareth." 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  September  20,  1908. 


193 


XVI.     CONSULTING  OUR  FEARS 

"And  when  we  departed  from  Horeb,  we  went  through  all 
that  great  and  terrible  wilderness,  which  ye  saw  by  the  way  of  the 
mountains  of  the  Amorites,  as  the  Lord  our  God  commanded  us; 
and  we  came  to  Kadesh-barnea." — Deuteronomy  1:19. 

Kadesh-barnea  was  near  the  south  border  of  the  Holy 
Land  to  which  the  Israelites  were  marching  from  their 
Egyptian  bondage.  It  was  but  a  few  days'  march  from 
their  destination.  At  this  place  occurred  one  of  the 
greatest  defeats,  without  a  battle,  recorded  in  history ;  for 
from  this  town  the  Israelites  turned  their  course  back  to 
wander  nearly  forty  years  in  the  wilderness,  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  them  leaving  their  bones  to  bleach  upon  its 
sands.  So  that  "Kadesh-barnea"  may  well  stand  for 
"borrowing  trouble"  and  may  teach  us  the  evil  result  of 
following  our  fears. 

(i)  I  notice,  first,  that  these  people  lost  their  pur- 
pose ;  they  became  aimless. 

With  all  the  enthusiasm  of  success  Moses  had  broken 
the  connection  of  his  people  with  Egypt.  In  the  grey 
dawn  of  that  morning  when  Pharaoh  and  all  his  hosts 
were  drowned  in  the  Red  Sea,  when  they  felt  the  freedom 
of  delivery,  the  possibility  of  being  lifted  into  a  nation, 
then  it  was  that  the  Israelites  were  first  warmed  with 
patriotic  fervor.  These  Israelites,  now,  could  sing  the 
praises  of  God  with  timbrel  and  dance.  It  was  the 
awakening  of  a  religious  and  national  consciousness  that 
led  them  to  break  forth  in  words  like  these:  "People 
shall  hear  and  be  afraid.  Sorrow  shall  take  hold  on  the 


194 


inhabitants  of  Palestine.  Fear  and  dread  shall  fall  upon 
them.  Thou  shalt  bring  the  people  in  and  plant  them  in 
the  mountains  of  thine  inheritance."  This  was  an  ancient 
"Marseillaise."  It  was  young  patriotism,  but  pitched  in 
the  highest  key. 

But  what  a  contrast  at  Kadesh-barnea !  Moses  has 
sent  out  twelve  spies  to  view  the  land.  The  people  have 
had  their  wish.  Moses  and  they  have  consulted  doubt 
and  fear.  They  are  anxious  to  see  all  their  troubles  in  a 
piece :  "the  land,  what  it  is ;  the  people  that  dwell  in  it, 
whether  strong  or  weak,  few  or  many ;  the  land,  whether 
good  or  bad;  the  cities,  whether  tents  or  strongholds." 
When  these  spies  return,  two  of  them  have  the  courage  to 
say,  "Let  us  go  up  and  possess  the  land  for  we  are  well 
able  to  overcome  it."  But  the  ten  say,  "We  are  not  able 
to  go  up  against  this  people.  They  are  too  strong  for  us. 
The  people  we  saw  in  it  were  of  great  stature.  We  were 
in  our  own  sight  as  grasshoppers." 

Perhaps  they  called  this  prudence.  But  where  now 
was  their  purpose?  Contrast  that  morning  battle  hymn 
with  language  such  as  this,  "Because  the  Lord  hated  us 
hath  he  brought  us  forth  out  of  Egypt  to  deliver  us  into 
the  hands  of  the  Amorites  and  to  destroy  us."  Pitiable 
words!  After  all  they  have  seen  and  endured  they  are 
ready  now  to  turn  back  and  to  make  bricks  under  the 
burning  sun  of  Egypt.  The  past — sordid  and  bitter  as 
it  has  been — is  preferable  to  any  future  they  can  think  of. 
Here  is  a  whole  people  aimless,  in  danger  of  rendering 
the  generation  that  follows  them,  and,  in  fact,  all  future 
generations  aimless.  Such  an  attitude  meant  more  than 
death  in  the  desert  to  a  million  souls.  It  meant  the  death 
of  a  great  movement,  a  stoppage  of  moral  good  that  might 
affect  a  thousand  generations. 

195 


But  take,  please,  a  noble  impulse  of  any  sort  and  it  is 
most  difficult  to  start  it  in  man  or  woman.  Religion  and 
education,  the  influences  of  church  and  school  and  home, 
are  constantly  bringing  inducements  to  arouse  in  the 
young  the  striving  of  a  high  aim.  But  oh  how  slow  we 
are  to  get  an  idea  of  what  God  wants  of  us  or  of  what  our 
friends  want  of  us,  or  of  what  we  really  want  of  our- 
selves. 

But  sadder  even  than  such  cases  are  the  instances  of 
people  who  have  made  a  good  start  towards  a  better  life 
but  who  suddenly  come  to  Kadesh-barnea,  fall  back,  join 
the  aimless  and  unknown.  They  had  a  wish  to  better 
themselves,  but  in  an  unfortunate  hour  they  have  seen 
more  difficulties  than  duty  required  them  to  see.  And  so 
they  have  given  up  all  further  attempt.  Just  this  moment 
some  difficulty  has  come  that  seems  insuperable  and  be- 
cause of  that  all  effort  and  endeavor  end. 

There  are  many  of  you  listening  to  me  now  whose 
past  life  became  to  you — only  a  few  weeks  ago,  perhaps — 
a  kind  of  Egyptian  bondage.  The  farm,  the  shop,  the 
store,  the  village  or  town,  yes  even  your  home,  became  an 
irksome  restraint.  Some  appeal  came  to  your  better  na- 
ture. You  were  stirred  by  some  book  or  some  life.  It 
is  under  such  influences  that  men  are  forced  out  into 
achievement  and  greatness. 

But  such  awakenings  lead  straight  into  difficulties 
and  dangers.  These  are  the  price  we  must  pay  for  the 
excellence  we  would  win.  I  have  seen  men  start  to  get 
an  education  almost  wholly  under  the  influence  of  a 
dream.  Hardly  a  dollar  in  the  pocket;  working  every 
spare  moment ;  dropping  out  to  teach  in  the  winter ;  get- 
ting deeply  into  debt ;  making  poor  progress  in  their  work, 
and  finally  arriving  at  "Kadesh-barnea."  Health  gone, 


196 


money  gone,  no  power  to  earn  or  borrow,  they  suddenly 
arrive  at  the  "mountains  of  the  Amorites."  They  send  out 
spies  to  see  if  it  will  pay.  They  side  with  their  fears  and 
surrender. 

College  men  come  to  this  sort  of  Kadesh-barnea. 
They  find  the  course  they  had  chosen  is  burdened  with 
studies  too  hard  to  carry.  They  have  been  here  only  a 
few  weeks  or  perhaps  a  year  and — oh,  it  seems  so  long  to 
look  to  the  end  of  the  course.  A  lucrative  business  op- 
portunity opens  up.  Why  should  they  longer  pursue  the 
object  of  their  dreams  ?  Perhaps  they  have  not  "made  it" 
in  some  subject  or  subjects  at  the  end  of  the  second 
month.  That  is  not  always  the  Kadesh-barnea  though 
to  some  fellows.  It  is  the  man  who  wants  to  look  a  long 
way  ahead,  who  wants  to  see  all  the  giants,  who  wants  to 
cross  all  the  bridges  at  once,  and  borrow  all  the  trouble  in 
a  piece,  and  fight  all  the  battles  in  a  day. 

And  that  is  the  most  painful  period  in  a  man's  life : 
the  day,  the  hour,  when,  for  some  reason  that  may  vanish 
in  a  few  hours,  he  concludes  to  slacken  his  hold  upon  the 
purpose  which  has  long  inspired  his  nobler  moments ;  just 
because,  at  present,  something  blocks  the  way ;  just  be- 
cause at  present,  the  road  goes  through  the  mountains  so 
that  he  cannot  see  it,  or  because  a  fog  has  settled  on  his 
path. 

Some  years  ago  a  young  student  came  to  bid  me  good 
bye ;  his  funds  had  given  out  and  he  was  going  to  give  up. 
I  said  :  "Going  to  give  up?  And  you  had  intended  to  go 
into  an  honorable  profession?  You  thought  you  had 
some  aptitudes  for  it?  Now  you  will  go  back  to  your 
job  in  the  paper  mill  ?  Look  about,"  I  said.  "Do  not  go 
for  a  day  or  two."  He  took  my  advice  and  he  found  a 

197 


way,  and  for  four  years  afterwards,  and  entered  the  pro- 
fession to  which  he  does  honor. 

If  your  purpose  is  of  any  value  at  all  you  must  not 
be  too  easily  scared  out  of  it.  One  of  the  things  which 
makes  a  purpose  worth  anything  is  its  future  promise. 
Because  of  what  there  may  be  in  it  a  man  should  wait  a 
long  time  before  he  gives  it  up.  In  struggle  there  is  the 
best  kind  of  education.  But,  in  aimlessness  what  is  there  ? 
Our  confidence  is  shaken  in  the  man  who  fails  to  do  what 
he  had  set  out  to  do.  What  it  would  have  cost  him, — we 
do  not  reckon  with  that.  All  achievement  costs,  even  the 
retaining  of  what  we  have  achieved.  Inventors  must 
guard  against  infringements.  Writers  must  protect 
themselves  by  copyright.  Moneyed  men  must  worry  over 
investments,  and  professional  men  over  their  positions. 
If  the  faint-hearted  or  incompetent  were  justified  in  go- 
ing back,  there  is  scarcely  one  of  us  who  would  not  sur- 
render at  once  rather  than  toil  on.  But  we  do  toil  on, 
because  there  is  time  before  us.  There  are  expedients. 
If  not  by  this  road,  we  may  gain  our  object  by  another. 
If  it  is  dark  today  it  may  be  light  tomorrow — perhaps  the 
next  hour. 

But  to  be  aimless!  That  is  to  be  mere  animal.  It 
is  to  forfeit  God's  nature.  A  man  is  great  by  his  very 
God-likeness.  He  is  great  by  the  truths  he  imbibes ;  great 
by  the  purposes  that  stir  in  him ;  great  by  the  labors  he 
assumes;  great  by  his  willingness  to  sacrifice;  great  by 
his  power  to  wait;  great  by  his  cheerfulness  under  diffi- 
culties. 

(2)  By  their  cowardice,  they  caused  their  past  ex- 
perience to  become  valueless.  An  intelligent  man  lives 
mainly  on  experience;  first,  on  that  of  other  men  which 
serves  as  an  inspiration,  and  then  upon  his  own  exper- 

198 


ience,  which  is  his  diploma  and  recommendation.  He 
needs  a  chapter  here  and  there  of  what  other  men  have 
done  in  order  to  give  him  a  start.  But  it  is  not  very  long, 
if  he  is  a  true  man,  before  his  own  experience  is  of  most 
service  to  him,  and  is  really  his  best  capital. 

How  many  books  have  been  written  to  inspire  young 
men  and  women,  books  on  "Self-Help,"  on  "Character," 
on  "Duty,"  on  the  "Pleasures  of  Life,"  on  "Success." 
But  after  a  man  once  really  catches  their  inspiration  he 
seldom  finds  time  to  read  even  such  books.  He  has  not 
time  to  take  lessons  from  other  folks,  his  own  experience 
is  piling  up  so  fast.  I  really  feel  a  heartfelt  sympathy  for 
scores  of  men  who  do  not  seem  to  find  time  to  read  even 
the  Bible  itself.  Business  pushes  them.  The  interests  of 
hundreds,  possibly  thousands,  of  people  are  all  bound  up 
in  them.  Competition  requires  painful  alertness.  New 
openings  demand  new  and  immediate  thought.  Each 
night  has  made  additions  to  what  they  know  and  can  do. 
New  experience  finds  new  uses. 

Gradually  such  fidelity  and  application  tell.  They  are 
serviceable  wherever  you  may  find  them  and  they  may  be 
transferred  wherever  you  will.  And  that  is  the  value  of  all 
experience.  You  can  pack  it  into  a  letter  of  recommenda- 
tion. When  a  student  comes  here  he  brings  his  certificates. 
They  are  the  chapters  of  his  past  experience.  Read 
closely  they  are  a  sort  of  palimpsest,  for  underneath  their 
fair  characters  we  can  read  the  headaches  he  has  had  in 
mathematics,  and  the  tears  he  has  shed  over  his  English 
spelling  and  over  those  dates  that  concern  the  landing  of 
Columbus  and  the  Pilgrims  and  the  founding  of  James- 
town. Yes,  these  certificates  are  his  past  experience. 
They  give  him  the  right  to  continue  his  experience  here. 

199 


While  he  stays  here  he  piles  up  more  experience.  Term 
by  term  his  history  is  growing  in  the  archives  of  the  col- 
lege. If  he  goes  out  into  the  world  he  may,  in  an  emer- 
gency, fall  back  on  this  college  record.  If,  after  years  of 
labor,  he  wants  to  transfer  his  services  elsewhere  he 
simply  carries  his  recommendations.  These  set  him  up 
at  once  in  a  new  place  as  permanently  as  if  he  had  always 
lived  there.  "What  has  this  man  learned  ?  What  has  he 
done?  What  are  his  aptitudes?"  These  are  questions 
constantly  recurring  in  regard  to  persons  of  all  ages,  all 
ranks,  all  callings  in  life,  and  a  man's  past  record  makes 
their  answer  more  nearly  possible.  It  is  this  past  ex- 
perience, stored  up  as  it  is  in  books  or  antiquities,  which 
saves  the  world  from  wasting  its  time  in  further  experi- 
ments. 

But  if  a  man  at  some  time  in  his  career  comes  to 
Kadesh-barnea ;  comes  to  the  hour  of  deep  discourage- 
ment ;  comes  to  where  the  "blues"  seize  him  and  hold  him 
as  in  the  grip  of  a  vise ;  comes  to  the  place  from  which  he 
is  going  back  anyhow  in  spite  of  all  you  can  say  to  him 
or  do  for  him : — what,  pray,  is  all  that  past  experience  to 
such  a  man  ?  If  he  will  go  back  to  Egypt,  if  he  has  only 
the  ambition  of  a  brickmaker,  if  he  would  rather  feel  the 
smart  of  the  master's  whip  than  to  endure  suspense  and 
danger  in  the  hope  of  a  larger  liberty,  would  rather  suffer 
the  debasement  of  a  slave  than  toil  for  the  manhood  which 
is  due  to  man;  then,  why  should  the  Almighty  display 
himself  in  his  delivery?  Why  should  pillar  of  fire  and 
cloud  go  before  him?  Why  should  water  burst  from  the 
rock  or  manna  fall  from  heaven  for  such  as  he  ?  Miracles 
are  wrought !  Yes !  But  they  are  wrought  only  for  the 
Sons  of  God.  Glory  is  due  to  encompass  those  alone  who 
have  glory  in  view. 

200 


What  a  picture-gallery  of  history  these  cowards  of 
Kadesh-barnea  looked  back  into!  What  race  or  nation 
can  turn  to  a  record  of  more  thrilling  pages  ?  But  these 
cowards !  They  had  learned  no  lesson  of  courage.  They 
had  gained  no  increase  of  confidence  in  God.  They  had 
not  yet  learned,  after  all  this  wonderful  teaching,  that  no 
future  could  ever  be  darker  than  their  past  had  been. 
And  here  the  craven  ones  were  turning  their  faces  to- 
wards the  wilderness  to  die  ingloriously,  when  the  very 
land  was  in  their  view,  when  its  fruits  fresh  and  beautiful 
had  greeted  their  eyes.  Their  purposes  were  abandoned, 
and  their  experience  thrown,  so  to  speak,  on  the  ash-heap. 

(3)  Their  deliverers  moved  daily  among  them 
though  they  were  blind  to  the  fact.  Moving  among  them 
all  these  forty  years  were  Caleb  and  Joshua,  the  men  who 
should  lead  their  children  to  final  conquest. 

But  in  a  panic-fear  like  Kadesh-barnea,  a  man  does 
not  seem  to  have  sense  enough  to  know  that,  if  he  is  ever 
to  go  on,  it  must  be  because  of  forces  within  himself.  A 
great  many  men,  in  their  discouragement,  think  their  help 
is  to  come  from  somebody  else.  But  it  is  to  come  from 
themselves.  A  man  can  be  helped  most  effectually  by 
himself.  Outside  help  of  my  sort  tends  to  pauperize  a 
man.  His  real  help  is  in  himself.  It  is  he  who  must 
assume  the  burdens,  he  who  must  face  the  dangers,  he  who 
must  shoulder  the  responsibility.  Not  all  the  money  in 
the  world  can  carry  a  man  over  into  the  land  of  promise. 
All  his  friends  may  martial  their  forces,  but  they  cannot, 
in  combination,  do  certain  things  which  shall  be  called  his 
success. 

But  there  is  a  Caleb  and  a  Joshua  in  every  man. 
There  is  an  inward  voice  which  cries,  "We  are  well  able  to 
go  up  and  possess  it."  There  are  certain  forces  in  every 

201 


man  which  can  face  danger,  which  do  have  fight  in  them, 
which  do  not  know  when  they  are  beaten.  But  at  Kad- 
esh-barnea  this  struggling  minority  of  our  better  nature 
is  killed  by  the  voice  of  cowardice  and  the  circumstances 
that  easily  breed  cowardice. 

Be  careful  then  how  you  give  way  to  a  temporary 
discouragement.  You  did  take  up  a  purpose  for  your- 
self. Be  careful  how  you  surrender  it.  It  may  be  hum- 
ble, but  the  fact  that  you  have  espoused  it  makes  it  hon- 
orable. One  of  the  wealthy  young  Vanderbilts,  a  few 
years  ago,  took  a  course  in  railroading.  One  of  the  sons 
of  the  president  is  learning  to  manufacture  carpets.  Such 
a  choice  brings  honor  to  the  man  and  not  to  the  profes- 
sion. A  man's  calling  is  the  land  of  his  dreams.  It  is 
his  Holy  Land,  if  he  pushes  on  into  it  and  discourage- 
ments do  not  turn  him  back.  Until  his  vision  opens  upon 
a  larger  one,  it  is  for  him,  "a  good  land  and  a  large,  a 
land  of  brooks  of  water,  of  fountains  and  depths  that 
spring  out  of  valleys  and  hills ;  a  land  of  wheat  and  barley, 
and  vines,  and  fig  trees  and  pomegranates,  a  land  of  oil 
olive  and  honey."  And  yet  it  is  a  land  of  whose  fruits 
only  the  willing  and  obedient  shall  eat. 

Be  careful  how  you  throw  away  that  past  in  which 
already  the  hand  of  God  has  been  bared  for  your  deliver- 
ance. For  every  earnest  man,  miracles  are  wrought. 
For  him  the  Red  Sea  waves  divide.  For  him  the  bitter 
waters  are  made  sweet.  For  him  the  manna  falls.  Not 
from  the  chapters  of  the  Bible  only,  but  from  the  book  of 
our  own  experience  also,  may  we  read  the  hand  of  God's 
deliverance.  Should  we  then  turn  back  ?  Nay  rather,  let 
us,  with  unyielding  faith  in  God,  allow  the  better  forces 
that  are  within  us  to  keep  on  and  work  out  their  own 
way.  Kadesh-barnea.  A  crisis.  It  may  come  any  day, 

202 


any  hour.  Shall  we  turn  back  to  slavery  or  push  on  to 
freedom  ?  Shall  we  be  slaves  to  sin  or  freemen  in  Christ  ? 
Shall  we  think  that  we  are  the  victims  of  the  universe  or 
shall  we  make  the  universe  itself  the  victim  to  our  higher 
wish?  Shall  we  not  obey  God?  Shall  we  not  push  on 
for  God's  land  ?  Shall  there  not  blossom  out  and  perfect 
itself  in  us  that  larger  life  and  wish  which  to  us  is  even 
more  possible  than  to  any  generation  of  individuals  pre- 
ceding us  ? 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  November  15,  1908. 


XVII.     SOME  PRACTICAL  BEARINGS  OF  A 
BELIEF  IN  THE  FUTURE  LIFE 

"Therefore,  my  beloved  brethren,  be  ye  steadfast,  immovable, 
always  abounding  in  the  work  of  the  Lord,  as  ye  know  that  your 
labor  is  not  in  vain  in  the  Lord." — I  Cor.  15:58. 

Believing,  as  I  do,  that  life  is  the  most  precious  of 
all  God's  gifts,  believing  that  it  grows  more  precious  the 
longer  we  live  it,  believing  furthermore  that  none  of  us 
can  live  it  any  too  well,  I  am  offering  some  hints  to  you 
on  this  subject  which  I  have  already  found  helpful  to  my- 
self. 

Supposing  that  the  argument  of  St.  Paul  is  true, 
then  three  things,  at  least,  may  be  inferred  from  it :  all  the 
emphasis  of  life  is  to  be  put  upon  the  present ;  the  future 
life  is  not  a  thing  to  be  too  much  dwelt  upon ;  and  man's 
highest  development  can  be  secured  only  as  we  obey  these 
two  previous  questions. 

203 


In  a  general  way,  we  are  taught  to  believe  that  the 
emphasis  of  life  is  to  be  laid  upon  the  present  day,  the 
present  hour,  and  the  present  fact.  "Now  is  the  accepted 
time,  behold  now  is  the  day  of  salvation."  "Trust  no 
future  however  pleasant ;  Let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead ; 
Act,  act  in  the  living  present."  "To  serve  the  present 
age,  my  calling  to  fulfill." 

And  furthermore  if  our  souls  are  made  in  the  image 
of  God  then  surely  to  lay  emphasis  on  the  present  is  the 
soundest  advice  for  us,  for  with  God  all  is  present.  He 
can  have  no  past,  no  future.  His  work  goes  ever  on,  for- 
ever finished  forever  unfinished, — a  constant  miracle. 
Every  morning  do  the  stars  sing  together  as  at  creation's 
birth.  God's  redeeming  work  goes  on  just  the  same  as 
when  the  angels  sang  at  Bethlehem. 

What  can  you  point  to  in  God's  universe  and  say  of 
it:  "That  is  old,  outworn,  passed  its  prime"?  The 
mountains  yonder  are  in  their  youth  as  when  they  first 
were  reared.  The  waves  break  ceaselessly  on  all  the 
coasts  of  all  the  continents,  forever  advancing  and  for- 
ever retreating  as  they  have  for  thousands  of  years  and 
will  for  other  thousands.  They  are  unwearied,  as  is  the 
sun  in  his  course  rejoicing  as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race. 
God  has  no  attic,  so  to  speak,  where  He  throws  aside  the 
cast-off  things  of  His  former  doing.  No  unseemly  scrap 
pile  disgraces  His  universe.  The  old  is  blended  with  the 
new  in  constant  flux  and  as  it  dies  it  lives  again,  as  it  is 
worn  out  and  ready  for  rejection  it  is  reabsorbed  and  helps 
to  remake  the  glorious  whole.  Nothing  is  old  with  God. 

To  lay  emphasis  on  the  present  is  in  accord  with  the 
very  instincts  of  our  souls.  The  manner  in  which  we 
discard  things  is  worthy  of  careful  notice.  And  the  more 
human  activities  increase  the  more  is  this  true.  The  more 


204. 


alert  the  soul  becomes  to  know  itself,  the  more  will  it  be 
true.  Our  grandfathers  and  great  grandfathers  wore  a 
broadcloth  suit  for  years,  and  think  of  the  "wonderful  one 
horse  shay."  We  are  impatient  of  last  year's  suit,  or  a 
last  year's  bicycle,  or  a  last  year's  book.  It  is  not  that  we 
turn  our  backs  upon  Homer  and  Virgil.  We  do  the  same 
to  Milton  and  Shakespeare;  we  are  doing  the  same  to 
Dickens  and  Thackeray,  and  soon  we  shall  to  Mrs.  Hum- 
phrey Ward.  We  are  not  satisfied  with  our  sciences  as 
taught  by  the  old  pioneers,  nor  with  the  methods  of  teach- 
ing handed  down  to  :us  from  Pestalozzi  or  Thomas  Arnold. 
We  want  to  be  permitted  to  see  nature  with  our  own  eyes 
and  to  instruct  according  to  present  necessities. 

This  is  instinctive  in  us.  We  do  not  want  some 
theologian  of  the  middle  ages  to  tell  us  how  we  are  to 
worship  or  what  we  are  to  believe.  We  are  impatient  of 
the  formularies  of  Augustine  and  Luther,  of  Calvin  and 
Wesley.  No  man  may  now  say  to  us,  "Believe  as  I  do  at 
the  peril  of  your  souls,"  because  we  do  not  believe  that 
any  man  is  given  the  power  to  imperil  our  souls.  And 
so  we  follow  the  instinct  of  Jesus  who  read  nature  directly 
and  not  through  the  schools.  We  prefer  the  natural  glow- 
ing language  of  Paul  rather  than  the  dry  theology  of  the 
school  of  Gamaliel.  There  is  a  naturalness  of  individu- 
ality, of  the  mood,  of  the  hour,  in  the  Gospels  of  Matthew 
and  Mark  and  Luke  and  John  that  will  always  make  them 
enjoyable.  It  is  the  man  who  is  thus  absorbed  in 
the  present  who  appeals  to  us,  who  can  write  well,  and 
speak  well,  and  carry  us  with  him.  "I  must  do  the  works 
of  Him  that  sent  me  while  it  is  day,"  said  the  greatest 
of  all  men.  And  his  greatest  apostle  declared,  "I  am  will- 
ing to  spend  and  be  spent  for  you." 

205 


The  gift  of  eternal  life  brings  with  it  also  this  same 
emphasis.  Immortality  and  eternal  life  are,  doubtless,  not 
one  and  the  same  thing.  Immortality  seems  to  be  a  part 
of  our  original  endowment  as  human  beings.  Eternal 
life  is  the  special  gift  of  Jesus  Christ,  given  to  those  who 
follow  Him,  who  pattern  after,  who  trust  Him. 

When  one  attains  for  the  first  time  the  true  con- 
sciousness of  eternal  life,  everything  takes  on  a  different, 
look  and  a  new  value.  A  moral  meaning  is  seen  to  un- 
derlie everything.  The  universe  is  seen  to  be  a  sublime 
opportunity  which  confronts  the  soul.  The  soul  comes 
to  know  God  as  the  source  and  giver  of  all  spiritual 
power.  It  comes  to  know  the  value  of  soul  upon  soul.  In 
other  words  it  comes  to  know  the  highest  values  that  are 
connected  with  life  and  living.  It  knows  that  it  must  use 
the  passing  moment  and  the  passing  fact  as  a  leverage  to 
higher  things. 

This  general  statement  needs  guarding,  however.  I 
would  not  have  you  to  understand  that  we  must  wholly 
ignore  the  past  and  the  future.  No  man  can,  with  truth 
to  himself,  live  confined  to  any  one  of  these  periods  of 
time.  For  to  live  wholly  in  the  past  is  to  be  a  pedant ;  to 
live  wholly  in  the  future  is  to  be  a  visionary;  to  live 
wholly  in  the  present  is  to  be  shallow  and  ineffective. 
The  only  abiding  actions  are  those  that  have  reference  to 
all  time  and  that  is  as  true  of  the  actions  of  men  as  of 
God. 

I  might  illustrate  what  I  mean  in  this  way:  The 
last  work  designed  by  Mr.  White,  of  the  McKim,  Mead, 
and  White  Company,  is  a  bank  building  in  Philadelphia. 
It  is  in  Roman  style  and  finished  in  costly  marble.  It 
leaves  upon  the  beholder  a  sense  of  sublimity,  of  dura- 
bility. The  directors  of  that  bank  might  have  surround- 

206 


ed  their  vaults  with  four  plain  walls  covered  in  simply  as 
a  shield  from  the  weather.  That  would  have  served  the 
present  use  without  any  reference  to  the  past  or  to  the 
future.  But  who  would  have  cared  to  look  at  such  a 
bank  ?  It  is  because  the  architect  allowed  his  remarkable 
genius  to  work  upon  a  past  rich  in  examples  that  he 
wrought  out,  with  modern  adaptabilities  and  conveniences, 
a  structure  worthy  to  stand  for  a  thousand  years. 

And  just  there  is  where  true  genius  is  seen  in  any  of 
the  arts  or  in  literature.  It  is  the  power  to  range  over 
all  time  and  over  all  nature,  and  to  take  it  all  in,  molding 
it  and  fashioning  it  by  the  hand  of  a  present  genius.  So 
the  Parthenon  was  reared,  so  Hamlet  and  Macbeth  were 
written,  so  the  Bible  grows  out  of  the  hearts  of  men. 
What  reverence  for  the  beliefs  of  the  past  are  carried 
through  its  pages  for  two  thousand  years  and  more,  only 
to  assure  us  that  the  reverence  thus  continued  shall  of 
necessity  still  continue. 

My  second  thought  is,  that  the  future  life  is  not  a 
subject  to  be  too  much  dwelt  upon. 

As  things  are  constituted,  we  have  no  means  of  get- 
ting at  the  subject  satisfactorily.  Our  friends  do  not 
rise  from  the  dead  and  come  back  to  us.  If  they  could 
do  so,  it  is  a  question  whether  that  other  life  would  not 
lose  all  the  moral  value  it  now  has.  And  even  if  now 
and  then  a  man  could  rise  from  the  dead,  his  doing  so 
would  satisfy  the  curiosity  of  only  a  limited  locality,  and, 
then,  not  very  long.  Furthermore,  very  little  is  said  on 
the  subject  in  the  Bible.  Some  declare  there  is  no  men- 
tion made  of  it  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  the  New  Tes- 
tament we  have  the  few  mysterious  words  of  Jesus  at  the 
tomb  of  Lazarus ;  we  have  St.  Paul's  eloquent  argument 
in  this  chapter,  with  a  few  touches  in  one  or  two  other 

207 


letters;  but  there  is  no  treatment  of  the  subject  exhaust- 
ively. There  is  a  marked  difference  in  this  respect  be- 
tween the  Hebrews  on  the  one  side  and  such  people  as 
the  Egyptians,  Greeks,  and  Romans  on  the  other. 

The  Egyptians  emphasized  immortality  to  such  a  de- 
gree that  it  filled  nearly  the  entire  circle  of  their  religious 
thinking.  They  developed  the  strange  doctrine  of  trans- 
migration. They  embalmed  the  body  that  the  soul,  after 
long  periods  of  changes  through  other  bodies,  might  come 
back  and  find  its  former  body  preserved  for  occupation. 
Of  necessity  they  were  obliged  to  reverence  all  grades 
of  animal  life  and  gradually  to  deify  it,  until  there  sprang 
up  idolatry  in  most  revolting  forms.  This  was  all  in  con- 
sequence of  their  views  of  the  future  life. 

Moses,  being  learned  in  all  the  wisdoms  of  the  Egypt- 
ians, when  he  came  to  legislate  for  the  Hebrews,  shut  the 
door  on  all  this.  He  taught  the  Hebrews  to  believe  in  one 
living,  eternal,  unseen  God.  This  opened  up  a  spirit 
world  with  spiritual  intelligences,  to  whom  man  is  allied 
by  nature,  being  made  in  the  image  of  God.  Being  alive, 
man  not  only  lives  now  but  will,  supposedly,  live  on. 
The  goodness  and  mercy  that  follow  him  all  the  days  of 
his  life  shall  cause  him  to  dwell  in  the  house  of  the  Lord 
forever.  Indeed,  viewed  from  this  standpoint,  I  think 
that  it  will  be  found  that  the  Old  Testament  is  shot 
through  and  through  with  the  idea  that  the  life  we  now 
live  is  of  indefinite  continuance.  Being  in  the  image  ot 
God,  being  Sons  of  God,  being  commanded  to  love  Him 
with  all  our  heart,  soul,  and  might,  is  a  proof  that  we  are 
permanent  and  enduring  members  of  His  family  and  that 
our  longings  for  length  of  life  and  for  perfection  of  life 
will  be  satisfied.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  had  no  such 
basis  of  belief,  and  therefore  men  like  Socrates  and,  later, 


208 


vo 
<rr 


W 


*0 


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in  imitation  of  him,  Cicero  groped  after  the  future  life, 
but  with  no  real  assurance  that  they  had  found  it. 

I  have  said  then  that  the  future  life  cannot  be  exactly 
demonstrated.  I  have  shown  that  the  Bible  lays  no  par- 
ticular emphasis  upon  it.  There  is  just  one  word  more 
to  say. 

Lay  too  strong  an  emphasis  upon  the  future  life  and 
what  will  be  the  result?  You  will  lay  a  lesser  emphasis 
on  this  life.  Comparisons  of  this  life  with  other  life  will 
be,  in  every  case,  to  the  advantage  of  the  present  life. 
Within  a  month,  I  heard  a  Christian  man  speak  of  this 
world  as  a  thing  sin-cursed  beyond  redemption.  And  yet 
it  is  God's  world,  our  Father's  world. 

Let  a  man's  thoughts  be  too  much  of  the  time  in  the 
New  Jerusalem,  treading  its  streets  of  gold  and  associat- 
ing with  its  sinless  inhabitants  and  every  time  he  returns 
from  his  quiet  meditations  he  is  likely  to  be  less  in  touch 
with  the  life  of  the  New  York,  Philadelphia,  or  other 
town  where  he  lives.  He  will  regard  it  defilement  to  rub 
shoulders  too  closely  with  people  who  are  wholly  en- 
grossed in  this  world:  men  who  are  atheists,  Sabbath- 
breakers,  lewd,  profane,  corrupt,  who  are  engrossed  in 
worldly  business,  whose  hearts  are  set  on  making  money. 
Such  a  man  will  think  himself  defiled  by  associating  him- 
self with  political  and  social  problems  and  life. 

The  greatest  criticism  against  Christian  people  has 
been  that  they  have  not  touched  shoulders  closely  enough 
with  the  world.  They  have  mistaken  the  Master's  mean- 
ing when  he  told  them  that  they  must  be  in  the  world  but 
not  of  the  world. 

The  most  popular  of  all  the  hymns  on  heaven,  frag- 
ments of  which  we  sing  in  these  later  days,  is  an  old 
Latin  hymn  entitled,  "On  the  Contempt  of  this  World." 


I  do  not  quote  it  because  I  do  not  wish  to  shock  any  one 
in  any  of  the  things  that  are  precious  to  him. 

In  dwelling  on  this  point  I  am  laying  the  emphasis 
precisely  where  it  was  not  laid  when  I  was  a  young  man. 
Books  were  published  then  representing  the  death-bed 
scenes  of  atheists,  of  unbelievers,  of  saints,  and  one  was 
led  to  believe  that  most  men,  in  dying,  must  make  some 
peculiar  parting  scene,  in  which  they  shall  be  brought  to 
express  their  faith  or  their  unfaith,  their  ecstacy  or  dread 
in  dying.  We  have  no  such  books  now.  The  induce- 
ments for  being  religious  then  were  either  the  joys  of  an 
unending  heaven  or  the  tortures  of  a  fire  everlasting. 
The  future  life  with  its  rewards  or  punishments,  but 
with  its  punishment  especially,  was  the  thing  with  which 
to  induce  men  to  take  up  the  Christian  life.  I  simply 
state  the  fact  when  I  say,  it  is  not  so  now  and  it  should 
never  have  been  so,  because  to  lay  too  great  emphasis  on 
the  life  to  come  is  to  cripple  ourselves  in  living  the  life 
that  now  is. 

The  last  point  I  make  is  that  the  work  of  God,  the 
perfecting  of  our  souls,  can  be  done  under  these  two  con- 
ditions only. 

Emphasize  and  lay  all  stress  upon  the  present 
through  all  your  life  to  the  last  moment  of  it.  Think 
little  of  the  future  and  only  so  far  forth  as  you  must 
sometimes  think  of  it.  Accept  this  world  as  heaven — I  am 
not  speaking  without  thought  or  with  extravagance — 
accept  this  world  as  heaven,  otherwise  there  is  danger  you 
will  never  accept  any  world  as  such.  Is  not  this  God's 
world  ?  Has  not  God  put  you  here  and  others  good  or  bad 
with  you  ?  Why  find  fault  with  anything  here :  with  your 
unfortunate  worldly  condition,  with  your  one  talent,  with 
sin,  with  ill-health,  with  your  outlook?  Why  live  in  a 
spirit  of  discontent,  or  work  up  a  spirit  of  discontent? 

210 


You  are  born  for  present  happiness,  for  present  con- 
tentment, for  present  gratitude  to  the  Unseen.  Take  mo- 
ments in  your  life  and  let  them  serve  as  samples.  Are 
there  not  times  in  your  life  when  you  say :  "The  world 
could  not  be  more  beautiful.  My  friends  are  as  dear  as 
friends  can  be.  My  lot  in  life  is  all  I  could  desire."  I 
have  never  yet  seen  a  person  who  has  not  had  a  moment  of 
such  a  sort  in  his  life.  Well,  that  is  the  way  to  feel  more 
of  the  time  and  finally  all  the  time.  If  our  surroundings 
are  not  what  one  would  call  heaven,  the  heart  and  mind 
can  make  them  so,  and  that  is  what  must  make  a  heaven 
of  any  place. 

Look  on  sin  and  sinners  as  means  towards  goodness 
and  holiness.  A  good  deal  of  so-called  sin  is  not  sin  at  all. 
It  partly  results  from  ignorance  and  partly  from  a  nature 
that  needs  training  and  purifying.  In  any  case  it  is  not 
a  thing  to  separate  ourselves  from  as  Pharisees  do. 

Our  Lord,  at  the  opening  of  his  great  sermon,  pro- 
nounces nine  beautitudes  and  blessings:  on  the  poor-in- 
spirit, on  the  mourners,  the  meek,  the  hungry-after- 
righteousness,  on  the  merciful,  the  pure  in  heart,  the  peace- 
makers, the  patient-under-persecution.  Think  what  all 
these  imply.  They  are  graces  that  must  grow  up  among 
and  must  be  tested  by  certain  forms  of  present  evil;  by 
pride,  hard  heartedness,  vanity,  love  of  the  world,  pollu- 
tion, and  tyranny.  Saintliness  is  not  won  in  some  colorless, 
faded,  bleached-out  heaven,  where  there  is  no  struggle. 
Saintliness  is  gained  only  on  earth,  gained  only  by  present 
contact  with  sin  and  sinners  and  not  by  separation  from 
them.  If  separation  from  the  world  means  to  be  cut  off 
from  the  poor  and  the  sin-stained,  and  the  profane,  and 
the  corrupt,  then  I  surely  have  read  Christ's  life  in  vain. 


211 


Make  the  fight  for  a  holy  life  now,  right  away.  Do 
not  make  a  compromise  with  evil  so  as  to  worry  in  any 
way  your  fellow  man,  or  lower  your  standards  of  holi- 
ness to  displease  God.  The  other  man,  and  the  other  man, 
and  still  the  other  man  may  not  be  holy,  "but  be  ye  holy 
for  I  am  holy,"  saith  the  Lord. 

Do  not  be  a  coward.  Take  up  the  work  of  life.  Do 
not  shrink  back  from  it.  Do  not  say  I  will  take  it  up  by 
and  by.  It  requires  too  much  sacrifice  now.  I  am  en- 
grossed with  business  now,  perhaps  God  will  accept  that 
as  an  equivalent.  I  will  serve  Him  better  when  I  get 
into  those  more  ideal  conditions. 

But  I  have  told  you  that  there  are  no  more  ideal 
conditions,  that  now  is  the  accepted  time,  that  you  have 
the  present,  and  that  upon  the  use  you  make  of  that  pres- 
ent depends  the  future  and  all  there  is  in  it.  Be  assured 
of  your  immortality.  Be  assured  that  eternal  life — the 
only  real  life  of  the  soul — is  offered  you  in  Jesus  Christ. 
Accept  that  life,  and  do  not  be  the  coward  to  refuse  it. 

"Foiled  by  our  fellowmen,  depressed,  outworn, 
We  leave  the  brutal  world  to  take  its  way; 
And  "Patience!     In  another  life,"  we  say, 
"The  world  shall  be  thrust  down  and  we  upborne." 
And  will  not  then  the  immortal  armies  scorn 
The  world's  poor  routed  leavings?.    Or  will  they 
Who  failed  under  the  heat  of  this  life's  day 
Support  the  fervors  of  the  heavenly  morn? 

"No,  no !    The  energy  of  life  may  be 

Kept  on  after  the  grave,  but  not  begun; 

And  he  who  nagged  not  in  the  earthly  strife 
From  strength  to  strength  advancing — only  he, 
His  soul  well-knit,  and  all  his  battles  won, 
Mounts,  and  that  hardly,  to  eternal  life." 

Delivered  in  the  Auditorium,  April  3,  1910. 
212 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 

There  are  preserved  in  the  Carnegie  Library  of  The  Pennsyl- 
vania State  College  the  one  hundred  and  forty_eight  sermons 
preached  by  Dr.  Gill  to  the  student  body  between  the  years  1899 
and  1910.  He  had  preached  frequently  in  the  Old  Chapel  before 
this  time,  but  he  does  not  seem  to  have  preserved  the  sermons.  A 
few  of  the  later  sermons  would  seem  to  be  earlier  efforts  rede- 
livered,  but  it  takes  only  short  examination  to  show  that  Dr.  Gill 
never  preached  an  old  sermon  without  rewriting  it  so  completely 
that  it  was  really  new.  He  was  careful  to  give  each  sermon  a 
title  and  to  mark  the  date,  and  place  of  delivery  upon  it.  Follow- 
ing are  the  titles  and  dates  of  his  sermons  to  the  student  body. 
Those  marked  with  the  asterisk  (*)  have  been  printed  in  full  or 
in  part  in  this  volume: 

1899-1900. 

1.  Uncertainties  and  Success.     Heb.  9:8.     Sept.  24. 

2.  Downward  Tendencies.     Matt.  4:6.     Oct.  8. 

3.  Giving  and  Getting.     Acts  20:35.     Oct.  22. 

4.  The  Athletic  Spirit.     I  Cor.  9:25.     Nov.  5. 

5.  Christ,  The  Only  Savior.     Acts  4:12.     Nov.  19. 

6.  The  Philosophy  of  "Getting  There."     Acts  28:14.     Dec.  10. 

7.  Rational  Piety.     Rom.  12:1.    Jan.  7. 

8.  Just  Missing  Christ.     John  4:10.    Jan.  21. 

9.  The  Secure  Foundation.     Matt.  7:24-27.     Feb.  4. 

10.  The  Cure  of  Moral  Leprosy.     II  Kings  5:12.     Feb  18. 

11.  A  Christian  Consciousness.     Acts  26:  29.     Mar.  4. 

12.  The  Responsibility  of  the  Hearer.     Luke  8:18.    Mar.  18. 

13.  Religion  and  Life.    John  10:10     April  8. 

*14.     Kadesh-barnea    or    Consulting    One's    Fears.     Deut.     1:19. 

April  29. 
15.     The  Lilies  as  Preachers.     Matt.  6:28.     May  20. 

1900-1901 
16    Leaving  Home.     Gen.  37:14.     Sept.  16. 

17.  True  Worship.     Acts  14:15-17    Sept.  30. 

18.  God  Revealed  in  Man.     Heb.  1:1  and  2.     Oct.  14. 

19.  Suffering  Saints.     I  Kings  19:10.    Oct.  28. 

215 


20.  Concealment  and  Confession.     Prov.  28:13.     Nov.  11. 

21.  Reflections  on  Work.     Mark  14:8.     Nov.  25. 

22.  The  Search  for  Christ.     Mark  1 :37.    Jan.  6. 

*23.  Values  Inherent  in  Friendship.     I  Sam.  18:1.     Feb.  17. 

24.  Christ's  University.     Titus  2:11-13.     Mar.  3. 

25.  Opening  Young  Eyes.     II  Kings  6:17.     Mar.  17. 

26.  Christ,  the  Life.     Matt.  28:7.     April  7. 

27.  The  Indispensability  of  Repentance.     Luke  24:47.     April  21. 

28.  Christ's  Humiliation.     Phil.  2:8.    May  12. 

29.  The  Improvement  of  Our  Talents.     Matt.  25:13-15.    June  2. 

1901-1902 

30.  The  Call  of  Religion.     Phil.  4:8.     Sept.  15. 

31.  The  Lesson  of  God's  Providence.    Gen.  22:2.    Sept.  29. 

32.  The  Use  of  Our  Time.     Eccles.  9:10.    Oct.  13. 
*33.  The  Preciousness  of  the  Bible.     Ps.  1 :2.    Oct.  27. 

34.  The  Relation  of  Gratitude  to  Religion.    Ps.  116:11.    Nov.  23. 

35.  Our  Responsibilities  to  Others.     I  Thess.  5:11.     Dec.  8. 

36.  A  Receptive  Life.     Matt.  13:4  and  8.    Jan.  5. 

37.  The  Nobility  of  God's  Salvation.     Rom.  1:16-17.    Jan.  19. 
*38.  How  to  Spend  My  Sundays.     Ezek.  20:20.     Feb.  2. 

39.  Angelic  Ministeries.     Matt.  4:11.     Mar.  2. 

40.  Our  Attitude  Toward  Suffering.     Luke  33:39-41.     Mar.  16. 

41.  The   Divinity   of   Christ    as   a    Force   Against    the  World. 

I  John  5:4.     April  6. 

42.  The  Good  Tendencies  in  a  Bad  Life.     Luke  15:11.24.     April 

20. 

43.  The  Evil  Tendencies  of  a  Good  Life.    Luke  15:29-30.  May  4. 

44.  Dreams  and  Dreamers.    Gen.  37:19.    May  18. 

45.  Decision  of  Character.     II  Kings  7:3-4.    June  1. 

1902-1903 

46.  Under  Changed  Conditions.     Eccl.  9:11.     Sept.  21. 

47.  Noble  Youth;  Noble  Manhood.    Dan.  6:10.    Oct.  5. 

48.  Preaching  Christ.     Acts  8:35.     Oct.  19. 

49.  Perfection    According  to  Kind.     (No  text  spoken   without 

notes).     Nov.  23. 

50.  The  Light  of  the  World.     Acts  26:17-18.    Dec.  21. 

51.  Taking  Life  Seriously.     John  9:4.     Jan.  11. 

52.  The  Choice  or  Rejection  of  Men.    Judges  7:7.    Jan.  25. 

53.  The  Value  of  True  Confession.     Ps.  51:4.    Feb.  8. 


216 


54.  Treasures  Never  Waxing  Old.     Matt.  13:44-46.     Mar.  1. 

55.  The  Road  to  Religion.     Eccl.   11:9-10.     Mar.  15. 

56.  The  Manliness  of  Religion.     Phil.  4:13.     Mar.  29. 

57.  The  Permanent  Hope  of  Man.     Luke  24:5.     April  12. 

58.  Disobedience  to  Duty,  or  Neglected  Opportunities.     I  Kings 

13:30.     May  17. 

*59.     The    Problems    of    Life    Solved    by    Worship.     Ps.    73:17. 
June  7. 

(Last  sermon  in  the  Old  Chapel.) 

1903-1904 

60.  Symmetrical  Manhood.    Luke  2:52.     Sept.  20. 

61.  Contemporary    Greatness,  or  the    Greatness  that   is    Right 

Above  Us.    Eccl.  7:10.    Oct.  4. 

62.  The  Religious  Life.     Ps.  23  3.     Oct.  18. 

63.  The  Logic  of  Christian  Events.     Acts  10:34-43.     Nov.  1. 

64.  A  Young  Man's  Influence.     John  1:41.     Nov.  15. 

65.  A  College  Brotherhood.     Acts  22:3.     Dec.  13. 

66.  The  Sweetest  Story  Ever  Told.    John  3:16.    Jan.  10 

67.  Our  Apathy  to  Improvement.     Num.  11:5-6.    Jan.  24. 

68.  Our  Attitude  to  Life.     Luke  14:10.     Feb.  7. 

69.  Some  Pioneer  Traits  of  Character.     Num.  13:30.     Feb.  21. 

70.  Religious  Conversation.    John  4:26.     Mar.  6. 

71.  The  Thought  of  God.     Isa.  40:18.     Mar.  20. 

72.  The  Needs  of  God.     Matt.  21:3.     Mar.  27. 

73.  Moods,  Critical  and  Devotional.    John  20:27.     April  17. 

74.  Honoring  Manhood  in  Ourselves  and  in  Others.     Acts  10:28. 

May8. 

75.  The  Responsibilities  Connected  with  Human  Liberty.     Rev. 

22:17.      May  22. 

1904-1905 

76.  Passing  on  the  Torch.     Phil^3:14.     Sept.  18. 

77.  Making  Our  Earth  a  Paradise.     Mark  16:7.     Oct.  2. 

78.  The  Crown  of  Holy  Character.     Rev.  3:11.    Oct.  16. 

79.  Jehovah-Worship  or  Calf- Worship.     Ex.  32:24.     Nov.  6. 

80.  Knowing  the  Truth.    John  8:32.     Dec.  11. 

81.  Christian  Freedom.    John  8:32.    Jan.  8. 

82.  The  Pearl  of  Great  Price.    Matt.  13:45-46.     Jan.  22. 

83.  Incitements  to  Progress.     Num.  13:23.     Feb.  5. 

84.  Line  upon  Line.     Is.  28:10.     Mar.  5. 


217 


85.  Divine  Traces  Restored.     II  Cor.  5:17.     April  9. 

86.  The  True  Religion  Concerned  with   Responsibilities  Rather 

than  Principles.     II  Tim.  1:12.     April  30. 

87.  A   Frowning  Providence  is  a  Smiling  Face.     I   Kings  17:6. 

May  7. 

*88.     Of  What  Use  is  an  Old  Man  Anyhow?     Gen.  47:8-9.  May  21. 
89.     The  Pronoun  "I."     Acts  10:26.     June  4. 

1905-1906 
*90.     Academic  Foundations.     I  Tim.   6:19.     Sept.  17. 

91.  Leaving  Our  Lord.     John  6:6-7.     Oct.  15. 

92.  The  Moral  Value  of  a  Great  Hope.     Heb.  11:22.     Oct.  22. 

93.  No  Cross— No  Crown.     Matt.  3:17  and  4:1.     Nov.  5. 

94.  Our  Natural  Relation  Toward  Wealth  and  Men  of  Wealth. 

No  text.     Nov.  26. 

95.  Ventilating  a  Matter.     Isa.  1:18.     Dec.  3. 

96.  The  Generosity  of  God.     Ps.  145:16.     Dec.  17. 

97.  Three  Serious  Questions.     Zech.  2:4.     Jan.  7. 

*98.  A  Man  is  Worth  What  He  can  Think.     Prov.  14:23.  Jan.  21. 

99.  How  to  Deal  with  Evil  and  Evils.     Matt.  13:28-29.     Feb.  4. 

100.  Faith  Founded  on  Little  Things.     I  Kings  17:14.     Feb.  18. 

101.  The  Fitness  of  Religion  for  the  Soul,  and  the  Conditions  of 

its  Growth.     II  Peter  3:18.     Mar.  11. 

102.  The  Will  of  God.     I  John  2:17.     Mar.  18. 

103.  What  Knowledge  is  of  Most  Worth?     I  Cor.  2:2.     April  8. 

104.  The  Resurrection  Morning.     Mark  16:4  and  8.     April  15. 

105.  Sins  of  Speech.     Jas.  3:8.     May  6. 

106.  Divine  Energy  and  Its  Transmission.     John  17:22.  May  20. 
*107.  Success  Through  Monotony.     II  Kings  13:19.     June  3. 

1906-1907 

108.  Picking  Up  Religious  Experience.     Deut.  8:2.     Sept.  16. 

109.  The  Vistas  of  the  Sons  of  God.     I  John  3:2.     Sept.  30. 

110.  The  Goal  of  the  Sons  of  God.     I  John  3:2.     Oct.  14. 

111.  Abraham's  Idea.     Gen.  12:3.     Oct.  28. 

112.  A  Normal  Conscience.     Dan.  3:16-18.     Nov.   11. 

113.  The  Revelation  of  Man  and  Its  Consequences.     Rom.  8:19. 

Jan.  6. 

114.  Consulting  Our  Fears.    Deut.  1:19.     Jan.  13. 

115.  Abraham's  Idea  Developed.     Ps.   150.     Feb.   10. 

116.  Enlargement  of  Vision.     II  Kings  6:17.     Feb.  19. 

218 


117.  Meditations  on  a  Common  Coin.     Matt.  22:20-21.     Feb.  24. 

118.  God  Manifested  in  Jesus  Christ.     I  Cor.  1:23-24.     Mar.  24. 

119.  Living  for  Old  Age.    Deut.  34:7.     April  14. 

120.  The  Noblest  of  all  Wishes.     Eph.  3:14-19.     April  28. 

'121.  Moulded  by  an  Idea,  a  Brief  Memorial  of  President  George 
W.  Atherton.     May  26. 

122.  A  Religion  Without  Fears.     Acts  20:20-21.     June  2. 

1907-1908 

123.  Missing. 

124.  The  Rock  of  Ages.     Matt.  7:25  and  27.     Oct.  27. 

125.  "Give  All  Thou  Canst."     Matt.  20:35.     Nov.  3. 

126.  Lead  Kindly  Light.     Acts  8:31.    Dec.  1. 

127.  The  Way  of  the  Ransomed.     Acts  8:31.     Dec.  8. 

128.  The  Yoke  of  Christ.     Matt.  11:28-30.    Jan.  12. 

129.  Salvation— Man's    and     God's     Method.     II    Kings     5:12. 

Jan,  26. 

130.  Character  in  the  Light  of  God's  Will.  I  Sam.  14:27.  Feb.  23. 

131.  The    Discovery    of    Our    Manhood    and   Its    Implications. 

Phil.  2:8.     Mar.  22. 

132.  Paul's    Valuation    of    the    Love    of    Christ.     Rom.    9:1-2. 

April  5. 

133.  The  Revelation  of  the  Glory  of  the  Godhead.     John  16:4. 

May  10. 

134.  Learning  from  the  Lilies.     Matt.  6:28.     May  24. 

1908-1909 
f!35.     Honoring  One's  Name.     I  Sam.  3:10.     Sept.  20. 

136.  Life  and  Its  Appliances.     Exod.  4:3.     Oct.  4. 

137.  Ways  of  Professing  Religion.    Josh.  2:21     Nov.  1. 
f!38.     The  Evils  of  Borrowing  Trouble.     Deut.  1:19.     Nov.  15. 

139.  Answers  to  Prayers.     Mark  11:24.     Dec.  13. 

140.  Separation  from  God.     Isa.  59:1-2.    Jan.  17. 

141.  God's  Commandments.     I  John  5:3.     Feb.  7. 

142.  The  Effectual  Knowledge  of  Christ.     John  9:25.     Mar.  7. 

1909-1910 

143.  Making    Clear  the    Way  and    the  Way    Clear.     Ps.  119:9. 

Sept.  19 

144.  The  Pronoun  "I."     Acts  10:26.     Oct.  10. 

145.  Light-Giving  Life.     Prov.  20:27.     Nov.  21. 


219 


146.  The  Only  Reasonable  Form  of  Prayer.    Matt.  7:9.     Nov.  28. 

147.  Is  There  Any  Tangible  Profit  in  Professing  Christ?     Acts 

26:29.     Jan.  23. 

*148.    Some  Practical  Bearings  of  a  Belief  in  the  Future  Life. 
I  Cor.  15:58.     April  3. 

So  far  as  I  can  find,  this  is  Dr.  Gill's  last  sermon  before  the 
student  body.  He  preached  in  August  on  the  front  campus  before 
the  united  churches  of  the  town  and  the  teachers  of  the  summer 
school. 


220 


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